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[music intensifies]

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[narrator] Planet Earth,
home to a growing number of Homo sapiens

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and a whole lot of other creatures.

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It's a great place to live.

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When it comes
to the future of our small planet…

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Now to a dire warning
about climate change.

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Natural disasters
like hurricanes or wildfires…

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[reporter 1] An unprecedented decline
in nature threatening humanity.

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[reporter 2] Sixth mass extinction event
is already well underway…

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[narrator] There's so much bad news
about our planet, it's overwhelming.

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The fear that we're headed for a cliff

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puts most of us into a state of paralysis.

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The truth is…

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I've given up.

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And the odds are so have you.

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But what if there was another path?

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This is the story of a simple solution,
a way to heal our planet

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and keep our species
off the extinction list.

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In fact, the solution
I'm talking about is right under our feet,

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and it's as old as dirt.

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We call it soil, earth, or ground.

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And due to its vast scale,

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and its ability to sequester
immense quantities of greenhouse gases,

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it could just be the one thing
that can balance our climate,

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replenish our fresh water supplies,

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and feed the world.

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That's why some people
are racing to save our soil

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in hopes our soil just might…

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save us.

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[alarm beeping]

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[groans]

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[man 1] I am a conservation agronomist.

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I have been in every state,

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all the way from Alaska,
to Puerto Rico, to Hawaii.

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I've also been asked
to go speak in Europe, Australia…

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I just haven't had the time.

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If we get the soil right,
we can fix a lot of our issues.

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Healthy soils lead to a healthy plant.

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Healthy plant, healthy animal,
healthy human,

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healthy water, healthy climate.

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This is what this is about today.

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Learning how the soil works
and learning how to farm like nature does.

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I have learned my job is to drop a seed.

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And the more you farm like nature,
the more we can reduce your inputs,

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and the more money you can make.

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It's my calling. Just as simple as that.

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Actually, this is one…

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I've lived in four or five states.

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Everywhere I go and work,
we're still having the same problem.

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Massive erosion.

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Erosion is when soil becomes dirt.

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[introspective music playing softly]

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[Harrelson] Rapid erosion began long ago
when humans developed the plow.

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Its purpose was to break the soil
in order to sow seeds.

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By the Bronze Age,

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vast areas around cities
were plowed up to plant grains.

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But as their soils eroded,

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those once-great empires
vanished into dust.

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But we don't have
to look back thousands of years

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to see the dangers of erosion.

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In the 1930s,

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America experienced the largest
man-made environmental disaster

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in history.

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It was called the Dust Bowl.

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It was largely caused by farmers
tilling the once-fertile Midwestern Plains

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and leaving the soil exposed.

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By the end of 1934,

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roughly 200 million acres of cropland
were permanently damaged.

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[train whistle blows]

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On a whistle stop train tour,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt saw

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the destruction
of America's soil firsthand.

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In response,
he created the Soil Conservation Service

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to save the nation's soil.

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[Roosevelt] What I have seen confirms me

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in the belief
that I've had for a long time…

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that we're going to win on this problem.

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It relates to working out
a plan of cooperation with nature

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instead of going along
with what we've been doing in the past

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trying to buck nature.

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[crowd cheering and applauding]

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[Harrelson] The practice of plowing
and tilling the soil

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continues to this day.

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[hammering]

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But so does Franklin D. Roosevelt's
Soil Conservation Service.

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It was made part
of the US Department of Agriculture,

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and it's now called the Natural
Resources Conservation Service,

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the NRCS.

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We want the water
to leave through a living plant.

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[Harrelson] Today, the NRC
has field agents, like Ray,

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trying to teach farmers
to reduce tilling…

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Microbes live in there,
and that's called the porous sphere.

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[Harrelson] …and reduce the spraying
of industrial chemicals

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that damage the soil.

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Tillage is one of the most
intrusive things we do

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in modern agriculture.

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It is not our friend.

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[humorous music playing]

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[Harrelson] The message is simple,

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but getting that message out…
is difficult.

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We have a social problem.
We have an education issue.

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And until we get that right,
we can't fix our ecological issues.

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I have been in NRCS for 31 years.

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It's kind of amazing to me
as I was teaching all over the country.

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I'm going, wow, our producers
don't really know how the soil works.

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They don't understand
the basic ecological principles.

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Everything runs by carbon.

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We're built by carbon.
The soil microbes run by carbon.

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Carbon is the driving engine.

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It runs the system.

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[Harrelson] But when it comes
to the role of carbon in our world,

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there's… a bit of confusion.

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To be specific, carbon dioxide is a gas.

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We breathe it out,
and plants breathe it in.

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We also make carbon dioxide
by burning fossil fuels.

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But carbon isn't bad.

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In fact,
it's the basis for all life on Earth.

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[man 2] There's a tendency right now
for us to be at war with carbon.

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Carbon's the bad guy.

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And I think this is a lost opportunity.
Carbon's the good guy.

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We're carbon.

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I'm-I'm 16 percent carbon,

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and all of it came from eating vegetation

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and things that eat vegetation.

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[woman 1] Plants use sunlight as energy,

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and they pull carbon dioxide
out of the atmosphere,

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they turn it into a carbon fuel,

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and that's how they grow.

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But 40 percent of that carbon fuel,
they send down to their roots.

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They're leaking it out in a very
strategic way to soil microorganisms.

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Plants are feeding
soil microorganisms carbon,

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and the soil microorganisms
are bringing plants mineral nutrients.

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And in the process of all that,

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those soil microorganisms make
a carbon glue out of that carbon fuel.

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And they make habitat in the soil.

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They make little pockets in the soil
to control the flow of air and water.

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And that's one of the ways
that carbon gets fixed in the soil.

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[Harrelson] In other words,
soil has the unique ability

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to sequester carbon dioxide
out of the atmosphere.

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That's a big deal.

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And what's even more amazing:

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the soil contains
an entire universe of life.

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Here, I went to years of college,
and I took soil science. I didn't know.

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I really did not know how the soil worked.

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It's alive.

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["You ***y Thing"
by Hot Chocolate playing]

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[woman 2]
In every handful of healthy soil,

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there more organisms than the number
of people who've ever lived

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on planet Earth.

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♪ I believe in miracles ♪

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♪ Where you from ♪

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-♪ You ***y thing ♪
-♪ ***y thing, you… ♪

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[Nichols] And those organisms
are processing organic matter

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that's in the soil

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and putting the nutrients
into a form that the plant needs.

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Comparing the soil microbial diversity

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to the microbial diversity we're now
seeing inside the human organism,

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you have more bacterial cells
in your body than you have human cells.

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Yeah, we're about one percent human
and 99 percent microbes.

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[laughing] It's the truth.

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[Nichols] The food that we eat,

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we actually chew and break
that food material down into little bits

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that get eaten by the bacteria in our gut.

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When you eat kale,
[chuckles] let's say,

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when you're eating kale,
your body doesn't consume kale.

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The bacteria consumed the kale.

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And you feed off of what the bacteria
have processed and released

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by the consumption of that kale.

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The key to health is eating dirt.
[laughs]

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What I mean by that
is we need to eat what's in the dirt

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that's transferred to the plants,
that then we eat and create health.

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[women speaking Portuguese]

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[lighthearted music playing]

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[woman 3] You know,
my husband is an athlete for a living,

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so he wants to provide his body
with the best possible nutrients

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so he can perform.

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[players grunting]

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I beat my body down so much
over the course of the season,

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the last thing I want to do
is add a bunch of food

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that I won't be able to properly digest,

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that won't be the kind of nutrition
that I need

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in order to repair and regenerate
my body the way that it needs to be.

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And, of course,
the quality of the soil is huge

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because it is the beginning
of the quality of the food.

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That quality of food
provides quality health.

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It all comes from the Earth. Big Mama.

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Our health and the health
of our planet are connected.

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-[ethereal music playing]
-[birds chirping]

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If we choose healthy food,
there is a reciprocation.

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Not only we feel better, we are healthier,
but the Earth is healthier.

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[Harrelson] Taking care of the microbes
in the soil is critical for human health.

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But spraying the soil
with toxic chemicals,

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well, does something else.

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[Nichols] All of our soils that are under
chemical conventional agriculture

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are almost completely devoid
of microorganisms.

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[Harrelson] Spraying the soil
with toxic chemicals

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kills the very microbes we need
to give us health,

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and pull the carbon from the atmosphere.

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The more tilling that's done,
the weaker the soil gets,

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and the more farmers feel compelled
to use chemical sprays.

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This is the vicious cycle
of industrial agriculture.

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And that cycle
was developed as a result of war.

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[cannons firing]

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The roots of industrial agriculture
go back to a German scientist

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named Fritz Haber.

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[ominous music playing]

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Haber invented a process
for making synthetic nitrogen fertilizer

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that increased food production.

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His other scientific breakthrough
was the creation of poisons

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known as pesticides.

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Haber used his pesticides
as the first chemical weapons in history.

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[somber orchestral music playing]

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Then he developed the poison
used in the gas chambers of the Holocaust.

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When the war ended,

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US chemical companies
brought Haber's poisons back to America

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and rebranded
his toxic chemicals as pesticides

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for American farms.

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[reporter 3] Dow set out to demonstrate
the effectiveness of its chemical killers

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00:14:01,341 --> 00:14:03,760
on a nationwide scale.

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00:14:03,176 --> 00:14:04,711
[crowd cheering]

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[woman 4] When the war ended,

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all the energy that went
into fighting the enemies in the world…

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went into fighting
the enemies on the farm.

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[Ohlson] All of a sudden,

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chemical fertilizer nitrogen
was available,

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and farmers could toss that on a field.

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Even if they hadn't
taken care of their soil,

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they could get a good crop for a while.

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[Harrelson]
Together, these wartime innovations

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created the most powerful
industrial food production system

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the world had ever seen.

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[dramatic orchestral music playing]

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[Nichols] We created an infrastructure
around single types of industry,

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and then we decoupled livestock
and row crop production.

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We found people
who are really good at raising livestock,

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and you found people
who were really good at growing row crops,

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and you split those two camps.

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[cow moos]

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[Ohlson] That ushered
in this big philosophical shift

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in terms of how we approached farming.

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Instead of understanding
and honoring natural processes,

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we could just throw out these chemicals.

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We just throw out more and more of them.

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It kept going up and up and up.

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It takes more nitrogen now
to raise a bushel of grain

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than it did in 1960.

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00:15:35,735 --> 00:15:39,339
[Archuleta] Our chemical fertilizers
mask the problem of degraded soils.

247
00:15:40,840 --> 00:15:45,110
Modern agriculture was not designed
for the betterment of the soil.

248
00:15:48,581 --> 00:15:51,618
[Harrelson] Today, our most common crops
are genetically altered

249
00:15:51,685 --> 00:15:54,988
to resist the spraying
of toxic pesticides.

250
00:15:56,589 --> 00:16:01,940
For example, the number one crop
in the United States, field corn,

251
00:16:01,161 --> 00:16:05,980
is almost entirely sprayed
with glyphosate,

252
00:16:06,299 --> 00:16:10,360
a chemical suspected
to cause cancer that's so over sprayed,

253
00:16:10,937 --> 00:16:14,708
it's found its way
into our drinking water.

254
00:16:17,277 --> 00:16:19,546
[Rodale] These chemicals,

255
00:16:19,679 --> 00:16:23,450
which were considered dangerous
to begin with,

256
00:16:23,550 --> 00:16:28,221
are now being used at rates
that would have been inconceivable

257
00:16:28,288 --> 00:16:29,289
twenty years ago.

258
00:16:31,570 --> 00:16:33,860
[Harrelson] Every year,
for every American alive,

259
00:16:33,960 --> 00:16:38,365
three pounds of toxic chemicals
are sprayed onto the food

260
00:16:38,465 --> 00:16:39,966
grown on our farms.

261
00:16:42,402 --> 00:16:44,738
[Rodale] That goes into the soil.
It goes into the water.

262
00:16:44,871 --> 00:16:45,972
It goes into our bodies.

263
00:16:46,720 --> 00:16:49,809
It's not just on the food you eat.
It's everywhere.

264
00:16:51,878 --> 00:16:56,490
[Harrelson] Most of the agricultural
industries' pesticides and herbicides

265
00:16:56,149 --> 00:17:00,200
transfer directly through breast milk
to babies.

266
00:17:02,856 --> 00:17:06,493
There are over 200 peer-reviewed studies

267
00:17:06,593 --> 00:17:10,230
that correlate the spraying
of these toxic chemicals

268
00:17:10,263 --> 00:17:13,660
to effects like ADD in children,

269
00:17:13,166 --> 00:17:16,536
pediatric cancers, and birth defects.

270
00:17:19,673 --> 00:17:23,943
That's why juries have begun
to award billions of dollars in damages

271
00:17:24,770 --> 00:17:27,580
to people who contracted cancer
after using glyphosate.

272
00:17:29,916 --> 00:17:34,120
We know, for example, that glyphosate,
which is also known as Roundup,

273
00:17:34,220 --> 00:17:36,690
has an effect on the gut microbiome

274
00:17:36,790 --> 00:17:40,260
that may lead to disturbances
that can create disease,

275
00:17:40,293 --> 00:17:41,528
including cancer.

276
00:17:44,970 --> 00:17:46,533
[Harrelson]
A big reason these chemicals make us sick

277
00:17:46,633 --> 00:17:50,870
is because just as toxic chemicals
kill the microbes in the soil,

278
00:17:52,305 --> 00:17:55,575
they also kill the microbes in our bodies.

279
00:17:56,710 --> 00:18:00,547
What I tell people is,
your body can handle acute stresses,

280
00:18:01,548 --> 00:18:03,783
but it cannot handle chronic stresses.

281
00:18:04,484 --> 00:18:06,319
The soil ecosystem is the same way.

282
00:18:07,530 --> 00:18:09,622
If you keep dumping the fungicides,
you keep dumping the herbicide,

283
00:18:09,723 --> 00:18:12,258
you keep dumping the insecticide,
you keep doing the tillage…

284
00:18:13,590 --> 00:18:14,461
chronic stress.

285
00:18:15,161 --> 00:18:16,663
It doesn't function anymore.

286
00:18:16,730 --> 00:18:18,732
[suspenseful music playing]

287
00:18:25,739 --> 00:18:30,343
[Harrelson] Since chemical agriculture
ramped up worldwide in the 1970s,

288
00:18:30,944 --> 00:18:35,181
we have lost one third
of the Earth's topsoil.

289
00:18:36,916 --> 00:18:40,653
But industrial agriculture
isn't just harming our soils.

290
00:18:41,621 --> 00:18:44,524
It's also affecting something much larger.

291
00:18:45,258 --> 00:18:47,360
[ominous music playing]

292
00:18:51,310 --> 00:18:56,503
[man 3] The most massive tsunami,

293
00:18:58,171 --> 00:19:01,207
perfect storm, is bearing down upon us.

294
00:19:03,900 --> 00:19:05,779
But fossil fuels…
carbon, coal, and gas…

295
00:19:06,346 --> 00:19:10,450
are by no means the only thing
that is causing climate change.

296
00:19:11,284 --> 00:19:14,387
Now, because the fate of water and carbon

297
00:19:15,550 --> 00:19:18,580
are tied to soil organic matter,

298
00:19:18,191 --> 00:19:21,961
when we damage soils, you give off carbon.

299
00:19:22,620 --> 00:19:24,130
Carbon goes back to the atmosphere.

300
00:19:29,135 --> 00:19:32,806
[Harrelson] Healthy soils
absorb water and carbon dioxide.

301
00:19:34,740 --> 00:19:39,879
But when we destroy soil,
it releases water and carbon dioxide.

302
00:19:41,881 --> 00:19:46,520
This dries out the soil
and turns it into dust.

303
00:19:49,989 --> 00:19:52,425
The process is called desertification.

304
00:19:54,828 --> 00:19:56,960
And how we deal with it

305
00:19:56,830 --> 00:20:00,266
could determine the fate
of more than just our climate.

306
00:20:03,670 --> 00:20:07,574
[Savory] Desertification is a fancy word

307
00:20:07,607 --> 00:20:09,943
for land that is turning to desert,

308
00:20:10,760 --> 00:20:14,914
and this happens
only when we create too much bare ground.

309
00:20:22,622 --> 00:20:26,259
[Archuleta] Soil and the plant
and the climate are connected.

310
00:20:31,698 --> 00:20:33,433
If you don't have a living plant,

311
00:20:34,734 --> 00:20:37,437
you're going to have more evaporation.

312
00:20:37,537 --> 00:20:40,373
What we want is transpiration,

313
00:20:40,807 --> 00:20:43,610
when the moisture leaves
through the plant.

314
00:20:44,144 --> 00:20:47,414
When it does that, it increases humidity.

315
00:20:47,480 --> 00:20:50,583
And when it increases the humidity,
we have more rain.

316
00:20:54,788 --> 00:20:59,159
Sixty percent of our rainfall
comes from the ocean.

317
00:20:59,793 --> 00:21:04,640
But a lot of people don't realize
40 percent comes from small water cycles

318
00:21:04,130 --> 00:21:07,634
where our rain comes from inland.

319
00:21:10,303 --> 00:21:13,973
What's going on
is we disrupted the small water cycles.

320
00:21:15,800 --> 00:21:19,346
That's when you have too much
sensible heat coming off bare soil.

321
00:21:20,580 --> 00:21:23,783
You're having
these huge vortexes of hot air going out.

322
00:21:24,484 --> 00:21:28,688
Instead of attracting the rain,
it's pushing the rain clouds away.

323
00:21:31,910 --> 00:21:34,494
[Savory] Take one square meter of soil
and make it bare,

324
00:21:34,594 --> 00:21:37,997
and I promise you,
you will find it much colder at dawn

325
00:21:38,980 --> 00:21:42,669
and much hotter at mid-day
than that same piece of ground

326
00:21:42,702 --> 00:21:44,838
if it's just covered with plant litter.

327
00:21:45,672 --> 00:21:48,508
You have changed the microclimate.

328
00:21:49,142 --> 00:21:51,344
Now, by the time you're doing that…

329
00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:56,983
on more than half the world's land…

330
00:22:01,388 --> 00:22:03,790
you are changing macroclimate.

331
00:22:12,365 --> 00:22:16,503
[Harrelson] Desertification of our soils
is a pressing threat to our climate

332
00:22:16,536 --> 00:22:17,904
and our species.

333
00:22:18,705 --> 00:22:22,208
[Savory]
But I have for you a very simple message.

334
00:22:22,976 --> 00:22:25,879
About two-thirds
of the world is desertifying.

335
00:22:26,813 --> 00:22:29,716
[somber music playing]

336
00:22:29,816 --> 00:22:32,819
[Harrelson]
As soils turn to dust around the world,

337
00:22:33,887 --> 00:22:37,590
every year, 40 million people
are pushed off their land.

338
00:22:41,227 --> 00:22:45,432
By 2050,
it's estimated that one billion people

339
00:22:45,498 --> 00:22:48,935
will be refugees of soil desertification.

340
00:22:52,739 --> 00:22:57,744
[Savory] More than 20 civilizations,
in all regions of the world, have failed

341
00:22:58,411 --> 00:23:01,581
because of agriculture
damaging the environment.

342
00:23:02,349 --> 00:23:04,684
Their communities could not handle

343
00:23:04,784 --> 00:23:08,880
the deteriorating environment
and the rising population.

344
00:23:09,923 --> 00:23:12,580
Globally, that's what we're doing today.

345
00:23:18,980 --> 00:23:20,367
Poor land leads to poor people.

346
00:23:22,869 --> 00:23:24,704
Poor people leads to social breakdown.

347
00:23:28,475 --> 00:23:32,545
Poor land leads to increasing frequency
of floods and droughts,

348
00:23:33,446 --> 00:23:37,484
and mass immigration
across borders and into cities.

349
00:23:39,619 --> 00:23:42,622
And it's leading
to ideal recruitment conditions.

350
00:23:45,291 --> 00:23:48,728
What we know right now

351
00:23:48,828 --> 00:23:51,898
is the way we're feeding ourselves

352
00:23:51,998 --> 00:23:57,303
is undermining the very ecology
that we're dependent upon.

353
00:23:58,571 --> 00:24:03,410
So the long-term prognosis
for our survival on this planet,

354
00:24:03,510 --> 00:24:07,580
given business as usual,
is very, very poor.

355
00:24:14,254 --> 00:24:15,822
[Harrelson]
According to the United Nations,

356
00:24:15,922 --> 00:24:21,428
the world's remaining topsoil
will be gone within 60 years.

357
00:24:24,970 --> 00:24:28,702
In other words,
unless we find a way to save our soils,

358
00:24:29,669 --> 00:24:32,439
we have 60 harvests left.

359
00:24:41,881 --> 00:24:45,852
The global scale of the problems we face
may seem insurmountable.

360
00:24:47,954 --> 00:24:50,724
But in every fight that seems unwinnable,

361
00:24:51,791 --> 00:24:55,610
there are those who refuse to give up.

362
00:24:56,863 --> 00:25:01,634
[Archuleta] Oh, let's see. Let's do that.
We'll do a couple of demos.

363
00:25:08,541 --> 00:25:10,543
[indistinct chattering]

364
00:25:18,218 --> 00:25:21,588
We're very fortunate
to have Ray Archuleta with us today.

365
00:25:21,654 --> 00:25:25,225
Ray, as you can tell, is someone
that has quite a bit of notoriety.

366
00:25:25,258 --> 00:25:28,561
He's got his own--
He's got his own reality show. Now, that--

367
00:25:28,661 --> 00:25:29,863
[audience laughing]

368
00:25:29,929 --> 00:25:32,499
With that,
I'm gonna turn the floor over to Ray,

369
00:25:32,599 --> 00:25:33,900
and, Ray, we appreciate you being here.

370
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:34,901
-Thank you very much.
-Thank you, Ray.

371
00:25:37,404 --> 00:25:41,374
This is a supercomputer model by NASA.

372
00:25:42,175 --> 00:25:45,779
We're concerned
of the red and purples being CO2.

373
00:25:47,614 --> 00:25:49,949
I want you to notice the dates.

374
00:25:50,950 --> 00:25:52,852
That is February.

375
00:25:54,921 --> 00:25:55,755
March.

376
00:25:58,525 --> 00:26:01,270
Now, what are we doing March? April?

377
00:26:01,940 --> 00:26:04,864
What do we do
in modern agriculture in April?

378
00:26:06,700 --> 00:26:08,268
We are tilling.

379
00:26:14,140 --> 00:26:16,543
We're tilling the land.

380
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:21,381
And look at the huge plumes of CO2.

381
00:26:22,716 --> 00:26:23,783
Look at the dates.

382
00:26:25,285 --> 00:26:26,119
May.

383
00:26:28,288 --> 00:26:32,659
Now, let's see what happens around June.

384
00:26:34,728 --> 00:26:36,463
Look at the colors change.

385
00:26:38,131 --> 00:26:41,668
Ladies and gentlemen,
what is happening in June?

386
00:26:41,735 --> 00:26:43,903
[uplifting music playing]

387
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:48,308
[laughs]

388
00:26:48,341 --> 00:26:51,311
Do you see how powerful
the living plants are?

389
00:26:51,344 --> 00:26:53,413
Can you imagine
if we had all our rangeland

390
00:26:53,513 --> 00:26:55,849
and all our cropland covered?

391
00:26:55,982 --> 00:26:59,753
A covered planet is a healthy planet.

392
00:27:01,187 --> 00:27:04,240
We can fix a lot of our climate issues

393
00:27:04,900 --> 00:27:07,260
if we bring the CO2 down
into a living plant

394
00:27:07,327 --> 00:27:09,696
and put it back into the soil
where it belongs.

395
00:27:15,769 --> 00:27:21,410
[Ohlson] Agriculture is the biggest way
that humans impact our landscape.

396
00:27:23,510 --> 00:27:26,846
We have unleashed, through agriculture,

397
00:27:26,946 --> 00:27:29,949
over the centuries, over the millennia,
carbon from the land,

398
00:27:29,983 --> 00:27:31,284
and it's now up in the atmosphere.

399
00:27:31,384 --> 00:27:34,554
It's now part
of that legacy load of carbon dioxide.

400
00:27:36,523 --> 00:27:41,610
Many people are coming
to this discussion about soil health

401
00:27:41,194 --> 00:27:44,640
because it can bring that carbon back down

402
00:27:44,197 --> 00:27:45,532
and put it in the ground.

403
00:27:45,565 --> 00:27:46,466
[audience cheering]

404
00:27:46,533 --> 00:27:49,536
First, he's an environmentalist
and the editor of Drawdown,

405
00:27:49,636 --> 00:27:53,540
the most comprehensive plan
ever proposed to reverse global warming.

406
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:55,750
Please welcome Paul Hawken.

407
00:27:55,742 --> 00:27:59,212
Tell us why your plan is different
and why it is the most comprehensive.

408
00:27:59,245 --> 00:28:01,881
Well, it's very different
because it's the first one ever.

409
00:28:01,981 --> 00:28:04,500
-[audience cheering and applauding]
-Wow.

410
00:28:05,318 --> 00:28:09,255
[Hawken] You cannot achieve drawdown
without bio sequestration.

411
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:13,560
Bio sequestration
is using plants, trees, perennials,

412
00:28:15,610 --> 00:28:18,498
and techniques of grazing and farming
to capture carbon

413
00:28:18,565 --> 00:28:21,234
and store it in the sink of the soil,

414
00:28:21,935 --> 00:28:25,105
and retain it for decades,
if not centuries.

415
00:28:27,173 --> 00:28:28,942
What we did is mapped,
measured, and modeled

416
00:28:29,900 --> 00:28:32,946
the hundred most substantive solutions
to global warming.

417
00:28:33,847 --> 00:28:36,349
And what I mean by solutions,
I mean things that are at hand.

418
00:28:36,383 --> 00:28:38,385
We know how to do it. There's scaling.

419
00:28:39,190 --> 00:28:43,289
And if we continue to scale in a rigorous,
but reasonable way, over 30 years,

420
00:28:43,423 --> 00:28:46,292
we can reverse global warming.

421
00:28:49,620 --> 00:28:53,700
[Ohlson] When you talk to people
about this great technology

422
00:28:53,767 --> 00:28:57,604
that has existed for millions of years

423
00:28:57,704 --> 00:29:02,208
that takes carbon out of the atmosphere
and stores it safely in the soil,

424
00:29:02,308 --> 00:29:06,379
and that it's called plants
working with soil microorganisms,

425
00:29:06,446 --> 00:29:07,647
it seems too simple.

426
00:29:10,316 --> 00:29:15,789
[Harrelson] Putting our atmospheric carbon
down into our soil may be a simple idea,

427
00:29:16,656 --> 00:29:19,726
but to do it on a global scale requires…

428
00:29:20,493 --> 00:29:21,494
politics.

429
00:29:22,950 --> 00:29:25,565
And when it comes
to the politics of climate change,

430
00:29:25,665 --> 00:29:27,133
well, let's just say…

431
00:29:29,102 --> 00:29:30,503
there's a lot of hot air.

432
00:29:31,104 --> 00:29:33,306
[classic French music playing]

433
00:29:36,142 --> 00:29:38,144
[birds chirping]

434
00:29:39,579 --> 00:29:43,350
[Harrelson] In 2015, the United Nations
held a climate summit in Paris.

435
00:29:44,351 --> 00:29:46,653
It was called COP 21.

436
00:29:48,188 --> 00:29:53,360
Forty thousand delegates
from 196 countries from all over the world

437
00:29:53,460 --> 00:29:57,430
met to reach an agreement
on how to address climate change.

438
00:30:01,267 --> 00:30:03,703
There were presentations and meetings

439
00:30:03,837 --> 00:30:07,207
and speeches, and speeches,

440
00:30:07,774 --> 00:30:09,776
and speeches.

441
00:30:09,876 --> 00:30:12,450
[robot] My name is Bunkin.

442
00:30:13,460 --> 00:30:14,848
Please touch my screen.

443
00:30:18,180 --> 00:30:21,621
[Harrelson] And there was one proposal
that offered real hope,

444
00:30:21,688 --> 00:30:24,791
and it was presented by this guy.

445
00:30:24,824 --> 00:30:27,293
["Requiem Pour Un C" by Serge Gainsbourg
playing]

446
00:30:30,296 --> 00:30:35,680
[Le Foll in French] I come from a village
in the region called "La Sarthe,"

447
00:30:35,735 --> 00:30:38,905
a small village, with a population of 256

448
00:30:38,972 --> 00:30:42,976
who were involved
in the world of rural farming.

449
00:30:43,430 --> 00:30:44,310
There were lots of farmers.

450
00:30:44,344 --> 00:30:47,470
So I was interested in farming
very early in life.

451
00:30:57,230 --> 00:30:58,425
It's called INRA,

452
00:30:58,491 --> 00:31:01,561
and it's been studying soil
for over a hundred years.

453
00:31:04,264 --> 00:31:09,102
INRA recently developed a program
called the Four for 1000 Initiative.

454
00:31:09,836 --> 00:31:13,606
Their goal is to increase
the carbon content of the world's soils

455
00:31:13,673 --> 00:31:16,910
by .4 percent annually.

456
00:31:17,610 --> 00:31:20,580
That would sequester
the same amount of carbon

457
00:31:20,613 --> 00:31:23,160
that humanity emits each year.

458
00:31:24,584 --> 00:31:27,420
[group speaking French indistinctly]

459
00:31:28,855 --> 00:31:32,250
-["Requiem Pour Un C" continues]
-[Nichols] The soil environment

460
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:33,760
can hold more carbon

461
00:31:33,860 --> 00:31:39,599
than the atmosphere and plants living
on the surface of the soil combined.

462
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:44,871
We have an incredible ability to be able
to store that carbon in the soil

463
00:31:45,305 --> 00:31:47,540
in a relatively short period of time.

464
00:31:49,309 --> 00:31:51,978
[Le Foll in French]
The primary tool of farming is the soil.

465
00:31:53,646 --> 00:31:56,816
It's not the tractor.
It's not the combine-harvester.

466
00:31:56,950 --> 00:31:58,952
It's not the satellite. It's the soil.

467
00:32:02,122 --> 00:32:03,490
What's really at stake here

468
00:32:04,891 --> 00:32:06,893
is what happens after COP 21 in Paris.

469
00:32:07,827 --> 00:32:11,464
If all people here
can become aware of the role of the soil,

470
00:32:12,665 --> 00:32:15,802
and if people can get that the soil
can be loaded up with carbon,

471
00:32:16,469 --> 00:32:18,405
and then after that,

472
00:32:18,505 --> 00:32:23,176
we must all take action
to achieve these objectives.

473
00:32:24,770 --> 00:32:26,790
["Requiem Pour Un C" continues]

474
00:32:28,581 --> 00:32:30,617
[Harrelson] At a side meeting at COP 21,

475
00:32:30,684 --> 00:32:34,654
Monsieur Le Foll,
the French Minister of Agriculture,

476
00:32:34,688 --> 00:32:39,693
presented an idea
that just might change the world.

477
00:32:41,661 --> 00:32:44,970
[woman speaking in French indistinctly]

478
00:32:44,164 --> 00:32:46,332
[in French]
Ladies, gentlemen, and dear colleagues,

479
00:32:46,366 --> 00:32:51,705
with all the farmland, but also,
with all the soils of the forests,

480
00:32:51,838 --> 00:32:54,541
we have an enormous potential.

481
00:32:54,674 --> 00:32:58,945
The fact that we are able
to implement an actual answer

482
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:01,470
to the struggle against climate change,

483
00:33:01,114 --> 00:33:03,383
an answer that could equal
the same amount

484
00:33:03,516 --> 00:33:05,385
as the amount of carbon
humanity emits each year.

485
00:33:05,452 --> 00:33:07,220
That's colossal.

486
00:33:08,221 --> 00:33:11,624
Four parts per thousand
is the capacity all of us have together

487
00:33:11,691 --> 00:33:13,660
to be able to succeed.

488
00:33:13,727 --> 00:33:14,561
Thank you.

489
00:33:18,465 --> 00:33:20,700
[Harrelson in English]
At the Four for 1000 event,

490
00:33:20,734 --> 00:33:24,337
many countries signed
Stéphane Le Foll's pledge

491
00:33:24,404 --> 00:33:27,173
to draw carbon down into their soils.

492
00:33:28,410 --> 00:33:33,747
[man 4] Thirty countries from around
the world signing on to, what I believe,

493
00:33:33,813 --> 00:33:38,840
is going to be one of the most
significant changes in agriculture.

494
00:33:38,151 --> 00:33:41,540
Because to achieve this Four for 1000,

495
00:33:41,870 --> 00:33:44,824
we have to change
the way we do agriculture.

496
00:33:45,392 --> 00:33:48,995
[Harrelson] And doing agriculture
in a way that sequesters carbon

497
00:33:49,620 --> 00:33:53,233
requires a radical reduction
in toxic pesticides,

498
00:33:53,266 --> 00:33:56,503
GMOs, and synthetic chemicals.

499
00:33:58,438 --> 00:34:01,508
But the three largest contributors
to carbon dioxide

500
00:34:01,574 --> 00:34:06,446
and the three largest agricultural
producers were missing from the agreement.

501
00:34:07,447 --> 00:34:11,918
India, the United States, and China
did not show.

502
00:34:14,287 --> 00:34:18,910
[interviewer] Does it frustrate you that
America did not sign on to the agreement?

503
00:34:18,591 --> 00:34:19,626
[in French] Yes, it's frustrating.

504
00:34:20,794 --> 00:34:24,464
Because this is the first time
an entire country, France,

505
00:34:24,531 --> 00:34:28,134
yes, a smaller country than the US,
but a big agricultural country,

506
00:34:28,868 --> 00:34:32,639
has proposed a global
and political initiative

507
00:34:33,206 --> 00:34:36,876
that links together
the fight against global warming

508
00:34:36,943 --> 00:34:38,712
with changing the way we farm.

509
00:34:38,778 --> 00:34:41,548
But when it comes to the US,
they're not there yet.

510
00:34:44,451 --> 00:34:47,253
[Harrelson] And after all that,
the United States announced

511
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:50,824
that it had pulled
entirely out of the Paris Agreement.

512
00:34:53,590 --> 00:34:56,629
If we are going to succeed
in balancing our climate,

513
00:34:56,663 --> 00:34:59,632
we do need to switch
to renewable energies.

514
00:35:00,667 --> 00:35:03,737
But none of that will alter
the tremendous amount of carbon

515
00:35:03,837 --> 00:35:05,939
we've already put into the atmosphere.

516
00:35:09,242 --> 00:35:13,790
Since 1750,
when the Industrial Revolution began,

517
00:35:13,146 --> 00:35:17,830
we've pumped about 1,000 billion tons,

518
00:35:17,183 --> 00:35:18,985
also known as gigatons,

519
00:35:19,519 --> 00:35:22,655
of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

520
00:35:23,656 --> 00:35:27,270
It's called our legacy load of carbon.

521
00:35:28,495 --> 00:35:33,433
And even if we stopped
all greenhouse gas emissions today,

522
00:35:33,500 --> 00:35:37,137
that legacy load of carbon
will still be there.

523
00:35:38,271 --> 00:35:40,206
[Ohlson]
That legacy load of carbon dioxide

524
00:35:40,273 --> 00:35:42,609
is still gonna be warming the atmosphere

525
00:35:42,709 --> 00:35:45,145
for decades, if not centuries.

526
00:35:45,211 --> 00:35:50,183
So if all we talk about
is reducing emissions,

527
00:35:50,283 --> 00:35:51,451
it's not enough.

528
00:35:53,553 --> 00:35:56,723
[Harrelson] If electric cars
and solar panels aren't enough,

529
00:35:57,223 --> 00:35:58,692
then what is the solution?

530
00:35:59,726 --> 00:36:04,640
The only goal that makes sense
for humanity is drawdown,

531
00:36:05,650 --> 00:36:09,235
a year-to-year reduction in carbon
in the upper atmosphere.

532
00:36:10,704 --> 00:36:12,806
Anything else is climate chaos.

533
00:36:14,641 --> 00:36:16,543
If we want to achieve drawdown,

534
00:36:17,544 --> 00:36:20,413
we have to go thank the Earth

535
00:36:21,470 --> 00:36:25,585
and start to farm
and grow our plants and trees

536
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:27,320
in an entirely different way.

537
00:36:29,255 --> 00:36:33,226
Once you achieve drawdown,
within 20 years, you have cooling.

538
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:35,862
You have the beginning of cooling.

539
00:36:36,930 --> 00:36:41,167
So, now, we have a horizon
that if you're 20, 30 years old,

540
00:36:41,267 --> 00:36:44,604
you can say,
"In my lifetime, we can achieve this."

541
00:36:47,841 --> 00:36:51,745
[Harrelson] In other words,
the very practices that heal our soils

542
00:36:51,845 --> 00:36:53,913
will also heal our climate.

543
00:36:54,140 --> 00:36:56,282
-[gentle piano music playing]
-[birds chirping]

544
00:36:57,417 --> 00:36:59,619
To stabilize Earth's climate,

545
00:36:59,753 --> 00:37:03,590
we can use the most powerful
carbon capture technologies:

546
00:37:05,125 --> 00:37:09,696
the photosynthesis of plants
and the microorganisms in the soil.

547
00:37:10,430 --> 00:37:13,990
And the one type of farming
that does this the best

548
00:37:13,199 --> 00:37:15,101
and draws down the most carbon

549
00:37:15,769 --> 00:37:19,739
is based on the concept of regeneration,

550
00:37:20,540 --> 00:37:23,977
which simply means
to repair the damage we've done

551
00:37:24,878 --> 00:37:26,379
and make things better.

552
00:37:28,314 --> 00:37:30,784
[upbeat guitar music playing]

553
00:37:30,884 --> 00:37:32,819
[man 5]
So we are sitting in a food forest.

554
00:37:34,154 --> 00:37:35,989
This is agroforestry.

555
00:37:36,790 --> 00:37:40,660
It's agriculture through trees,
tree diversification.

556
00:37:40,727 --> 00:37:43,897
-[roosters crowing]
-[Mraz vocalizing to guitar]

557
00:37:43,997 --> 00:37:48,902
I've got an avocado tree,
banana tree, fig tree, coffee trees.

558
00:37:49,469 --> 00:37:50,970
♪ …and put my hands in the dirt… ♪

559
00:37:51,710 --> 00:37:54,641
We went from a lot of crop
of single Hass avocado

560
00:37:54,741 --> 00:37:57,344
to now having
about 40 different fruit varieties onsite.

561
00:37:57,410 --> 00:38:00,246
♪ 'Cause my home is where
My food is grown ♪

562
00:38:00,347 --> 00:38:02,982
♪ I'm goin' back to the earth… ♪

563
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:06,820
By diversifying, we can now have harvests
every month.

564
00:38:09,189 --> 00:38:13,526
If you're looking to do something
that would greatly impact Mother Earth,

565
00:38:13,593 --> 00:38:14,661
plant a tree.

566
00:38:15,462 --> 00:38:18,531
You don't need acres and acres
and acres to build a food forest.

567
00:38:18,665 --> 00:38:20,700
You really just need
a few hundred square feet.

568
00:38:20,834 --> 00:38:22,769
[vocalizing continues]

569
00:38:23,536 --> 00:38:25,171
You're gonna look outside
one day ago and go,

570
00:38:25,271 --> 00:38:28,608
"What is something we buy
every day at the grocery store,

571
00:38:28,708 --> 00:38:31,778
that instead of waiting for it
to be shipped around the world to me,

572
00:38:31,845 --> 00:38:34,514
what can I put in my own backyard
that I can do myself?"

573
00:38:35,382 --> 00:38:38,451
♪ And to truly be forgiven
We must all get back to livin' ♪

574
00:38:38,551 --> 00:38:41,221
♪ With the land in harmony ♪

575
00:38:41,354 --> 00:38:43,790
♪ I'm goin' back to the earth ♪

576
00:38:44,457 --> 00:38:45,458
♪ I'm goin' back… ♪

577
00:38:45,558 --> 00:38:48,395
[Harrelson] Regenerative agriculture
grows more food

578
00:38:48,495 --> 00:38:49,696
per acre.

579
00:38:49,729 --> 00:38:52,465
It's scalable
to our entire agricultural system.

580
00:38:52,532 --> 00:38:57,537
And what's more,
it's already being done right now, today.

581
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:05,345
[man 6] I'm a rancher.

582
00:39:05,412 --> 00:39:07,647
That's how I prefer to be thought of

583
00:39:07,747 --> 00:39:09,382
is I'm a rancher.

584
00:39:09,416 --> 00:39:12,585
A farmer technically grows crops.

585
00:39:12,652 --> 00:39:15,422
A rancher raises livestock.

586
00:39:16,256 --> 00:39:19,759
Why I like to be considered a rancher
is because…

587
00:39:19,859 --> 00:39:23,763
I'm all about living things
and taking part in living ecosystems.

588
00:39:23,863 --> 00:39:27,567
And, to me, that's what my operation
is about: a living ecosystem.

589
00:39:28,401 --> 00:39:30,503
[tractor motor whirs]

590
00:39:30,570 --> 00:39:32,706
We purchased this place in 1991.

591
00:39:32,772 --> 00:39:36,760
And for the first two years,
I was farming conventionally.

592
00:39:36,176 --> 00:39:39,913
Heavy, heavy tillage.
High use of synthetics.

593
00:39:41,448 --> 00:39:43,216
1995 came along,

594
00:39:43,283 --> 00:39:46,119
and the day
before I was going to start combining,

595
00:39:46,219 --> 00:39:48,421
I lost 100 percent of our crop
to a hail storm.

596
00:39:48,521 --> 00:39:49,956
So we were totally wiped out.

597
00:39:51,291 --> 00:39:53,259
No income from our crops.

598
00:39:54,127 --> 00:39:57,130
That was really tough to take
'cause we didn't have crop insurance.

599
00:39:58,131 --> 00:39:59,766
1996 came along,

600
00:39:59,866 --> 00:40:02,635
we lost 100 percent
of our crop to hail, again.

601
00:40:02,736 --> 00:40:04,137
1997 came along…

602
00:40:07,374 --> 00:40:08,375
we dried out.

603
00:40:08,475 --> 00:40:09,609
Nobody combined an acre.

604
00:40:09,709 --> 00:40:11,378
There was a major drought in this area.

605
00:40:12,645 --> 00:40:15,949
1998 came along, and we lost
80 percent of our crop to hail.

606
00:40:15,982 --> 00:40:19,319
So we were four years
with basically no crop income.

607
00:40:21,121 --> 00:40:24,457
The neighbors were all taking bets
and waiting for my land.

608
00:40:24,557 --> 00:40:26,559
Times were really
getting tough financially,

609
00:40:26,626 --> 00:40:29,829
and the banker didn't want to loan me
any money to buy inputs.

610
00:40:30,330 --> 00:40:31,798
The best thing that could have happened.

611
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:35,301
I wasn't gonna fail.

612
00:40:37,300 --> 00:40:39,500
I really had to start focusing,

613
00:40:39,720 --> 00:40:42,142
how can I make this farm and ranch

614
00:40:42,242 --> 00:40:45,345
get these soils to produce a crop
without all these inputs?

615
00:40:49,182 --> 00:40:54,254
So I started to be
a studier of soil ecosystems.

616
00:40:54,754 --> 00:40:58,240
I actually went back
and I read Thomas Jefferson's old journals

617
00:40:58,910 --> 00:41:01,428
'cause I was trying to figure out
how did they do this

618
00:41:01,494 --> 00:41:03,697
previous to the use
of all these synthetics.

619
00:41:09,350 --> 00:41:11,538
[Archuleta] We have been promoting no till
for many, many years.

620
00:41:11,671 --> 00:41:14,774
No tillage means
you don't till the soil at all.

621
00:41:14,874 --> 00:41:16,543
You just plant directly into it.

622
00:41:16,609 --> 00:41:18,345
This is a no-till drill.

623
00:41:19,379 --> 00:41:22,549
No-till drills are available
everywhere in the world.

624
00:41:23,783 --> 00:41:27,200
This will help you grow topsoil.

625
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:30,230
Any type of tillage equipment
will destroy topsoil.

626
00:41:30,557 --> 00:41:31,825
This is your firming wheel.

627
00:41:31,858 --> 00:41:35,695
This holds this residue
so the disc here can cut it,

628
00:41:35,795 --> 00:41:37,564
just making a small slit.

629
00:41:38,131 --> 00:41:42,569
The seed travels down
at a specific rate per acre.

630
00:41:42,702 --> 00:41:44,204
This comes around,

631
00:41:44,304 --> 00:41:47,640
moves a small amount of soil
right over that seed.

632
00:41:47,741 --> 00:41:50,430
We're keeping all this armor
on the soil surface

633
00:41:50,143 --> 00:41:54,140
in order to protect the soil
from wind erosion, water erosion,

634
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:58,585
so we can grow crops on much less moisture
with this type of a system.

635
00:42:02,222 --> 00:42:05,258
Rain falls on this,
it's going to go right into the soil.

636
00:42:05,392 --> 00:42:08,595
Rain falls on bare soil,
it's going to run off,

637
00:42:08,695 --> 00:42:11,640
and then
it's going to evaporate very quickly.

638
00:42:13,566 --> 00:42:16,903
[Harrelson]
Soil that is not tilled stores more water,

639
00:42:17,300 --> 00:42:19,239
thus increasing microbe growth,

640
00:42:19,339 --> 00:42:21,541
which leads to more plant growth

641
00:42:21,608 --> 00:42:24,544
and even to more local rainfall.

642
00:42:26,446 --> 00:42:29,516
This is the virtuous cycle
of regeneration.

643
00:42:33,219 --> 00:42:37,624
Gabe Brown's soil is also pulling
more carbon out of the atmosphere.

644
00:42:38,858 --> 00:42:42,429
For every one percent increase
in organic matter,

645
00:42:42,462 --> 00:42:46,966
an acre of soil draws down
ten more tons of carbon.

646
00:42:47,734 --> 00:42:49,102
[Brown] I mean, that's huge.

647
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:51,538
We have to reduce tillage.

648
00:42:52,639 --> 00:42:54,107
We gotta grow cover crops.

649
00:42:55,410 --> 00:42:56,776
We have to get a living root all the time.

650
00:42:56,810 --> 00:43:00,580
We can't have these bare periods
with nothing growing on them.

651
00:43:00,647 --> 00:43:02,982
We've gotta start using these principles

652
00:43:03,116 --> 00:43:04,884
to restore the water cycle.

653
00:43:04,984 --> 00:43:06,286
And it is fixable.

654
00:43:11,891 --> 00:43:16,563
So I'm taking you to a field here
that is a multi-species cover crop.

655
00:43:18,465 --> 00:43:20,300
[uplifting music playing]

656
00:43:20,333 --> 00:43:21,835
The purpose of a cover crop

657
00:43:21,935 --> 00:43:25,405
is to enhance the life
and the function of the soil.

658
00:43:27,307 --> 00:43:28,141
Think of it this way.

659
00:43:28,174 --> 00:43:30,677
If I draw a monoculture on this field,

660
00:43:30,777 --> 00:43:34,414
we'd only be feeding
the soil biology one type of root exudate.

661
00:43:35,810 --> 00:43:36,983
I'm growing 19 species here.

662
00:43:37,484 --> 00:43:39,619
We're accelerating biological time.

663
00:43:39,686 --> 00:43:42,355
We're feeding the soil biology

664
00:43:42,455 --> 00:43:46,259
what it would take
a conventional farmer 19 years to do.

665
00:43:46,359 --> 00:43:47,594
I'm doing it in one year.

666
00:43:49,290 --> 00:43:53,266
So people might ask,
"How do you get any money from this then?"

667
00:43:59,272 --> 00:44:02,800
Our livestock will graze this
during the winter,

668
00:44:02,108 --> 00:44:05,378
speeding up the process
of regenerating those soils.

669
00:44:08,715 --> 00:44:11,785
Animals grazing living plants

670
00:44:11,851 --> 00:44:15,622
are a part of the carbon cycle.

671
00:44:20,293 --> 00:44:21,561
Here in the Northern Plains,

672
00:44:21,661 --> 00:44:25,650
our soils were formed
by large herds of bison and elk

673
00:44:25,131 --> 00:44:26,966
being moved by predators,

674
00:44:27,670 --> 00:44:30,700
grazing a landscape,
trampling that carbon,

675
00:44:30,136 --> 00:44:31,971
the plants, onto the soil surface.

676
00:44:32,706 --> 00:44:36,743
Not coming back for maybe a year.
Allowing full recovery.

677
00:44:38,478 --> 00:44:40,313
[Harrelson] It wasn't that long ago

678
00:44:40,380 --> 00:44:43,817
that over 60 million buffalo
roamed the continent.

679
00:44:47,854 --> 00:44:48,755
[gunshot]

680
00:44:48,855 --> 00:44:51,558
In an attempt to starve
the Native Americans,

681
00:44:51,658 --> 00:44:55,495
the US military and the railroads
killed most of the buffalo.

682
00:44:57,330 --> 00:44:59,990
By the time the culling ended,

683
00:44:59,232 --> 00:45:02,702
only a few thousand
of the majestic animals remained.

684
00:45:08,742 --> 00:45:10,377
Where buffalo once roamed,

685
00:45:10,443 --> 00:45:16,182
industrial agriculture now grows
hundreds of millions of acres of crops

686
00:45:17,217 --> 00:45:18,752
just to feed animals.

687
00:45:19,686 --> 00:45:23,523
And those animals
are concentrated into feedlots.

688
00:45:25,625 --> 00:45:30,864
In turn, feedlots produce
a tremendous amount of greenhouse gases.

689
00:45:33,990 --> 00:45:34,601
[Nichols] A feedlot situation

690
00:45:34,701 --> 00:45:38,438
has a positive amount
of greenhouse gases being emitted.

691
00:45:39,906 --> 00:45:41,808
In a grazing situation, the data shows

692
00:45:41,875 --> 00:45:44,477
that we actually get
greenhouse gases sequestered.

693
00:45:45,478 --> 00:45:47,981
So in one situation, you get emissions,

694
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:50,617
and in the other situation,
you get sequestration.

695
00:45:51,484 --> 00:45:54,120
The problem isn't the animal.

696
00:45:55,321 --> 00:45:57,223
The problem is where the animals are at.

697
00:45:57,290 --> 00:45:59,292
[dramatic music playing]

698
00:46:00,930 --> 00:46:01,394
Cows can be good.

699
00:46:03,129 --> 00:46:06,399
That is one
of the most controversial statements…

700
00:46:08,468 --> 00:46:10,737
of mankind at this point.

701
00:46:12,972 --> 00:46:16,576
Using cattle
and allowing them to roam and graze,

702
00:46:16,643 --> 00:46:21,810
land grazing,
can literally revive enough space

703
00:46:21,181 --> 00:46:23,830
to create a tremendous amount of drawdown.

704
00:46:24,417 --> 00:46:25,785
I'm from Southeast Louisiana.

705
00:46:25,819 --> 00:46:28,455
I grew up
in an incredibly delicate ecosystem.

706
00:46:29,656 --> 00:46:34,661
Conservation was always
a very serious part of my life.

707
00:46:35,662 --> 00:46:39,320
I had no idea
that the Earth was desertifying.

708
00:46:39,990 --> 00:46:40,500
[helicopter blades whirring]

709
00:46:45,271 --> 00:46:48,174
I got on a plane from New York City
to fly to Zimbabwe to meet Allan Savory

710
00:46:49,776 --> 00:46:53,279
so he could show us
the difference between desertification

711
00:46:55,150 --> 00:46:56,160
and regeneration.

712
00:46:56,950 --> 00:47:02,522
Land that has been holistically managed
through planned grazing using cattle,

713
00:47:03,356 --> 00:47:05,392
-the most vilified animal in the world.
-[cow moos]

714
00:47:07,660 --> 00:47:10,230
We are in Africa right now
driving through a field

715
00:47:12,650 --> 00:47:16,569
that has been under Allan Savory's
holistic management for nine years,

716
00:47:17,570 --> 00:47:19,139
and it is an Eden.

717
00:47:20,373 --> 00:47:21,975
This is what you call high grass.

718
00:47:24,477 --> 00:47:27,580
Using livestock to reverse desertification

719
00:47:27,647 --> 00:47:31,551
is totally scalable
to about two-thirds of the world's land,

720
00:47:32,318 --> 00:47:33,753
and nothing else is.

721
00:47:34,254 --> 00:47:38,425
And, frankly, that can be done
at extremely low cost.

722
00:47:41,394 --> 00:47:43,960
[birds chirping, insects chittering]

723
00:47:46,232 --> 00:47:47,670
Here we are.

724
00:47:48,101 --> 00:47:49,436
This is what it should be like.

725
00:47:50,737 --> 00:47:53,740
You've been working
on this land for eight or nine years.

726
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:58,111
It went from a place
of turning into a total desert,

727
00:47:58,845 --> 00:48:02,182
and using hooved herding herbivores.

728
00:48:02,248 --> 00:48:07,220
You have literally transformed that,
what we've been seeing,

729
00:48:07,287 --> 00:48:09,890
-into this.
-Yeah.

730
00:48:09,756 --> 00:48:12,359
How in the hell do you make this happen?

731
00:48:12,425 --> 00:48:15,610
[cows mooing]

732
00:48:20,330 --> 00:48:22,802
[Savory]
So the urine and the hooves of the animals

733
00:48:22,902 --> 00:48:24,971
are what caused this grass to grow.

734
00:48:26,106 --> 00:48:29,609
That livestock is never on more
than a hectare of this land,

735
00:48:29,709 --> 00:48:30,877
about 2.5 acres,

736
00:48:30,944 --> 00:48:33,113
-never more than three days.
-Right.

737
00:48:33,146 --> 00:48:35,415
And they're never back
on that piece of land

738
00:48:35,482 --> 00:48:37,217
under about six to nine months.

739
00:48:37,317 --> 00:48:40,530
-Wow.
-So no plant can get overgrazed.

740
00:48:40,887 --> 00:48:44,391
You can come any day of the year,
anywhere on this land,

741
00:48:45,258 --> 00:48:47,600
and you will see no livestock

742
00:48:47,127 --> 00:48:50,296
because they will be
on less than one hectare of land.

743
00:48:50,397 --> 00:48:52,966
And unless we take you there,
you won't even know it.

744
00:48:57,804 --> 00:49:02,308
Dealing with this beast of climate change,
a lot of people don't understand

745
00:49:02,342 --> 00:49:03,343
that this…

746
00:49:05,345 --> 00:49:06,813
-helps climate change.
-Yes.

747
00:49:06,913 --> 00:49:10,417
-This sequesters carbon.
-Yeah.

748
00:49:11,618 --> 00:49:16,322
This takes the one thing that
we so desperately need out of the air,

749
00:49:16,423 --> 00:49:19,759
and it holds it, and it makes oxygen.

750
00:49:20,660 --> 00:49:23,530
[Savory]
Yeah, if we can produce solid grassland,

751
00:49:23,663 --> 00:49:27,200
you can pull down enormous amounts
of carbon back into the soil.

752
00:49:27,934 --> 00:49:31,438
Two-thirds of the world, roughly,
is grasslands in savannas

753
00:49:31,504 --> 00:49:35,975
where the rainfall is too low
to support a solid canopy of trees

754
00:49:36,420 --> 00:49:37,177
giving you soil cover.

755
00:49:37,210 --> 00:49:41,470
So grass is essentially
what has to stabilize that soil.

756
00:49:42,549 --> 00:49:45,218
You look at this, and you realize
this is what the world should look like.

757
00:49:45,352 --> 00:49:46,953
This is what Africa should look like.

758
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:49,389
This is what South
and Central America should look like.

759
00:49:49,456 --> 00:49:51,891
This is what Texas should look like.

760
00:49:53,493 --> 00:49:54,728
This is how we win.

761
00:49:56,229 --> 00:49:58,198
We can get the Earth

762
00:49:58,298 --> 00:50:01,868
back to the garden of Eden
that it once was

763
00:50:01,901 --> 00:50:03,370
by regeneration.

764
00:50:06,139 --> 00:50:07,374
[Harrelson] When used smartly,

765
00:50:07,474 --> 00:50:12,345
herbivores can pull down carbon
and reverse desertification.

766
00:50:13,313 --> 00:50:15,548
But it doesn't just work for Africa.

767
00:50:16,816 --> 00:50:18,551
It works everywhere in the world.

768
00:50:20,820 --> 00:50:22,922
-[idyllic music playing]
-[birds chirping]

769
00:50:36,403 --> 00:50:39,172
[woman 5] So it's long pants today, right?
You guys are gonna ride horses?

770
00:50:39,272 --> 00:50:40,340
Yeah.

771
00:50:40,940 --> 00:50:42,800
[woman 5] Okay.

772
00:51:01,628 --> 00:51:04,631
I was raised
in a rural area in Washington,

773
00:51:05,365 --> 00:51:08,201
adopted by a Lakota elder.

774
00:51:08,301 --> 00:51:12,105
We were out in nature every day.

775
00:51:14,774 --> 00:51:19,279
I found permaculture,
and that was very influential in my life,

776
00:51:20,460 --> 00:51:24,500
where I could see that
there could be a permanent agriculture…

777
00:51:24,150 --> 00:51:28,988
an agriculture
that not only fed the planet,

778
00:51:29,550 --> 00:51:34,127
but also fed the people
in a way that regenerated

779
00:51:34,227 --> 00:51:35,795
and didn't deplete resources.

780
00:51:37,664 --> 00:51:41,935
[Harrelson] Holistic ranchers,
like the Markegards, use careful planning

781
00:51:42,100 --> 00:51:46,506
so their cows sequester carbon
and actually regenerate the land.

782
00:51:47,974 --> 00:51:52,145
[Doniga] So this is our grazing plan
and control chart.

783
00:51:52,245 --> 00:51:55,982
This tells us where we're planning
to have the cattle when.

784
00:51:56,160 --> 00:51:57,684
[upbeat guitar music playing]

785
00:52:00,487 --> 00:52:01,354
Hi!

786
00:52:06,326 --> 00:52:08,862
[Doniga] Let's see. It's July 22nd,

787
00:52:09,496 --> 00:52:13,299
so they were in G1,

788
00:52:13,366 --> 00:52:19,305
and they are going to move here.

789
00:52:28,114 --> 00:52:34,120
All these paddocks correlate
with a map that I have here.

790
00:52:34,888 --> 00:52:39,793
So these are all segments of fencing
where the cattle are.

791
00:52:39,826 --> 00:52:42,295
It tells me how big it is.

792
00:52:42,362 --> 00:52:47,534
I can record observations, species,
all right in here in the field.

793
00:52:49,636 --> 00:52:54,207
We manage over 8,000 acres
throughout the Bay Area,

794
00:52:54,307 --> 00:52:56,976
so we're constantly on the move.

795
00:53:02,816 --> 00:53:03,883
[man 7] I never get bored.

796
00:53:05,719 --> 00:53:06,653
I never get bored.

797
00:53:11,424 --> 00:53:14,494
[Ohlson]
They call cows mobile microbe tanks,

798
00:53:14,594 --> 00:53:18,998
you know, because cows
employ microbes in their rumen

799
00:53:19,650 --> 00:53:21,735
to break down the fibers in food.

800
00:53:21,768 --> 00:53:23,670
So when cows poop,

801
00:53:23,737 --> 00:53:27,273
that is just like a steaming mound
of microbes dumped onto the land,

802
00:53:27,374 --> 00:53:31,244
and it's-- it-it, you know,
it's a powerful stuff for the land.

803
00:53:33,613 --> 00:53:35,782
[Doniga] So it's been about three months

804
00:53:35,849 --> 00:53:38,518
since the cattle have been
in this pasture.

805
00:53:42,789 --> 00:53:46,226
Did you hear that little pop
when I popped it out?

806
00:53:46,292 --> 00:53:50,930
That was all these root hairs popping off.

807
00:53:51,598 --> 00:53:56,536
There's just thousands
and thousands of feet of these root hairs

808
00:53:56,636 --> 00:54:01,207
that are interconnected
with all of these other bunch grasses

809
00:54:01,307 --> 00:54:04,811
and all of these other species
through their root hairs

810
00:54:04,944 --> 00:54:07,147
and also through the mycorrhiza fungi.

811
00:54:08,381 --> 00:54:09,983
The cattle will come along,

812
00:54:10,784 --> 00:54:14,821
and they'll eat the tops off.

813
00:54:17,657 --> 00:54:22,162
What happens
when the grasses get bitten off

814
00:54:22,262 --> 00:54:23,897
is these roots slough off.

815
00:54:25,498 --> 00:54:27,300
And what is that root made out of?

816
00:54:29,690 --> 00:54:29,903
Carbon.

817
00:54:30,503 --> 00:54:34,641
We're taking carbon from the atmosphere
via photosynthesis

818
00:54:34,741 --> 00:54:36,242
into the plant,

819
00:54:37,770 --> 00:54:39,979
and then it's going through the plant

820
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:43,160
into the root system,

821
00:54:43,149 --> 00:54:47,200
that carbon, and it sloughs off
and turns into humus…

822
00:54:49,189 --> 00:54:50,457
where it belongs.

823
00:54:51,257 --> 00:54:53,259
[ethereal music playing]

824
00:55:00,767 --> 00:55:04,771
The form of agriculture that we use

825
00:55:04,871 --> 00:55:08,108
creates billions of lives

826
00:55:09,542 --> 00:55:12,779
in the form of soil microbes,

827
00:55:12,846 --> 00:55:17,170
in nematodes, in grassland birds.

828
00:55:17,117 --> 00:55:21,121
All of that wildlife is flourishing

829
00:55:21,221 --> 00:55:23,857
under an agriculture system

830
00:55:25,291 --> 00:55:29,295
versus a tilled crop field,

831
00:55:29,396 --> 00:55:32,198
which is denude of life.

832
00:55:36,236 --> 00:55:40,740
[Harrelson] In the vast majority
of those tilled fields grow one thing:

833
00:55:42,420 --> 00:55:43,877
animal feed.

834
00:55:44,911 --> 00:55:47,647
Corn, soy, and hay.

835
00:55:49,549 --> 00:55:53,319
These crops and the feedlots
that rely on them exist

836
00:55:53,420 --> 00:55:57,657
only because they are subsidized
by our tax dollars.

837
00:55:59,492 --> 00:56:03,163
I was speaking to a group of corn
and soybean producers from Missouri

838
00:56:03,263 --> 00:56:04,164
this past winter.

839
00:56:04,264 --> 00:56:05,398
And the one guy stood up and said,

840
00:56:05,498 --> 00:56:08,768
"Why would I want to plant
anything else than corn and beans

841
00:56:08,902 --> 00:56:11,938
when I'm guaranteed a profit
before I even go on the field?"

842
00:56:12,939 --> 00:56:16,760
[Harrelson] The United States Department
of Agriculture uses something

843
00:56:16,176 --> 00:56:18,845
called the Commodity Credit Corporation

844
00:56:18,945 --> 00:56:22,949
to give farmers price guarantees
for growing specific crops.

845
00:56:25,852 --> 00:56:27,620
In the current system,

846
00:56:27,754 --> 00:56:31,257
taxpayers subsidize farmers
to grow the crops

847
00:56:31,358 --> 00:56:35,195
that feed the animals
that live in feedlots,

848
00:56:35,261 --> 00:56:37,864
which emit greenhouse gases.

849
00:56:39,199 --> 00:56:40,133
The result?

850
00:56:41,340 --> 00:56:46,106
Our land is turning to dust,
and our farmers are going bust.

851
00:56:46,773 --> 00:56:50,443
[Brown] And then I come back and ask them,
now, how much money would you be making

852
00:56:50,543 --> 00:56:53,580
if the government
wasn't subsidizing your operation?

853
00:56:53,646 --> 00:56:55,548
And they know. They know the answer.

854
00:56:55,615 --> 00:56:57,417
They're not gonna be making money.

855
00:56:57,984 --> 00:56:59,586
I dropped off all those programs.

856
00:56:59,619 --> 00:57:02,389
I tell producers
I don't want to be on welfare anymore.

857
00:57:04,570 --> 00:57:06,793
[Harrelson]
Even with genetically-altered seeds,

858
00:57:06,893 --> 00:57:10,130
chemical sprays, and government subsidies,

859
00:57:10,230 --> 00:57:13,833
most farmers struggle
to make a few dollars per acre.

860
00:57:14,667 --> 00:57:16,669
But on its 5,000 acres,

861
00:57:16,736 --> 00:57:22,242
Brown's ranch generates
over $100 profit per acre per year.

862
00:57:24,577 --> 00:57:28,982
If you build a healthy farm ecosystem,
you're going to be resilient.

863
00:57:29,150 --> 00:57:30,517
You're going to take the risk out of it.

864
00:57:31,840 --> 00:57:34,254
Yes, I grow corn.
I don't grow soybeans, but I grow peas.

865
00:57:35,622 --> 00:57:36,456
That's good.

866
00:57:36,523 --> 00:57:39,159
But I also grow wheat,
and barley, and oats, vetch,

867
00:57:39,259 --> 00:57:42,462
and triticale, and alfalfa,
grass-finished beef, lamb, pork,

868
00:57:42,529 --> 00:57:45,365
honey, vegetables,
all these other products.

869
00:57:45,465 --> 00:57:48,168
I could care less
what the price of corn or beans are

870
00:57:48,268 --> 00:57:51,137
because they're such
a small fraction of my operation.

871
00:57:51,204 --> 00:57:54,541
I built resiliency into the ecosystem.

872
00:57:57,177 --> 00:58:00,613
Most of the land that's managed by farmers

873
00:58:00,680 --> 00:58:02,849
is owned by somebody
other than the farmer.

874
00:58:04,551 --> 00:58:06,186
We believe landowners,

875
00:58:06,286 --> 00:58:09,823
as they come to understand
the long-term benefits

876
00:58:09,889 --> 00:58:11,358
of managing for soil health,

877
00:58:11,458 --> 00:58:14,861
will encourage their farmers
to prioritize this.

878
00:58:16,563 --> 00:58:19,466
Once a farmer starts to manage
for soil health

879
00:58:19,532 --> 00:58:21,701
and see those economic benefits,

880
00:58:21,801 --> 00:58:22,969
they won't turn back.

881
00:58:24,571 --> 00:58:27,207
[Harrelson]
By switching to regenerative agriculture,

882
00:58:27,307 --> 00:58:30,310
American farmers
could increase their profits

883
00:58:30,377 --> 00:58:34,247
by over 100 billion dollars annually,

884
00:58:34,314 --> 00:58:37,500
and virtually eliminate their subsidies.

885
00:58:38,510 --> 00:58:39,753
You know,
we have a motto on our operation.

886
00:58:39,819 --> 00:58:42,655
We want to sign
the back of the check and not the front.

887
00:58:42,722 --> 00:58:45,825
It's a pretty good motto.
It leaves a lot more in your pocket.

888
00:58:45,892 --> 00:58:46,826
[audience chuckling]

889
00:58:46,893 --> 00:58:49,329
The federal farm program we have today

890
00:58:49,429 --> 00:58:53,867
is the most detrimental thing there is
to regenerative agriculture.

891
00:58:55,435 --> 00:58:59,339
[Harrelson] In order for our governments
to support the shift to regeneration,

892
00:58:59,439 --> 00:59:02,509
the people may have to lead the way.

893
00:59:03,610 --> 00:59:06,780
And the odds are
there are some things that you can do

894
00:59:06,846 --> 00:59:10,830
to save our soils today.

895
00:59:10,583 --> 00:59:13,620
[Maher] This is everybody's life
every hour of the day almost.

896
00:59:13,687 --> 00:59:14,788
Food waste.

897
00:59:14,854 --> 00:59:17,590
Yeah, food waste is ubiquitous.
Everybody does it.

898
00:59:19,693 --> 00:59:22,462
[Harrelson] Well, not everybody does it.

899
00:59:23,930 --> 00:59:26,433
["Latin Rock Party"
by Kevin Edward Jarvis playing]

900
00:59:38,978 --> 00:59:43,116
There are continents and other really
large regions that are getting hit

901
00:59:43,216 --> 00:59:47,287
with a double whammy
of higher temperatures and drought.

902
00:59:47,387 --> 00:59:50,256
This kills soil. It kills life.

903
00:59:52,292 --> 00:59:55,610
One of the solutions to that challenge

904
00:59:55,128 --> 00:59:59,299
is to collect the food scraps
from cities, like San Francisco,

905
00:59:59,399 --> 01:00:03,690
turn them into compost,
and get it onto local farms.

906
01:00:03,636 --> 01:00:08,141
And that helps them retain water
because compost is a natural sponge.

907
01:00:10,143 --> 01:00:15,915
The unfortunate reality is
most trash or garbage gets incinerated

908
01:00:15,982 --> 01:00:17,350
or sent to a landfill.

909
01:00:18,180 --> 01:00:19,352
We need to model nature.

910
01:00:20,820 --> 01:00:21,988
[man 8]
I had the good fortune of being mayor

911
01:00:22,220 --> 01:00:25,910
when we brought the United Nations
World Environment Day into our city.

912
01:00:25,191 --> 01:00:29,662
We made it a week-long celebration
of the environment and a call to action.

913
01:00:31,464 --> 01:00:34,501
And one of the specific strategies
was reducing waste.

914
01:00:37,170 --> 01:00:40,140
[Harrelson]
San Francisco residents are actually fined

915
01:00:40,206 --> 01:00:43,543
for not putting compost
into the green bin.

916
01:00:43,677 --> 01:00:47,447
[Newsom] We incentivize people
to keep things out of the black bins.

917
01:00:47,547 --> 01:00:49,549
When you have nothing
in a black bin, we don't charge you.

918
01:00:49,616 --> 01:00:52,352
When you have a ton of stuff
in the black bin, we charge you a lot.

919
01:00:52,385 --> 01:00:55,121
So your goal
is to get it in the green and blue bins,

920
01:00:55,221 --> 01:00:57,190
the composting and the recycling bins.

921
01:00:58,458 --> 01:01:00,660
You want to move the mouse,
gotta move the cheese.

922
01:01:02,896 --> 01:01:04,230
[Reed] In San Francisco,

923
01:01:04,297 --> 01:01:07,701
we're collecting 700 tons of food scraps

924
01:01:07,801 --> 01:01:10,537
and plant cuttings per day.

925
01:01:10,570 --> 01:01:12,639
["Latin Rock Party" continues]

926
01:01:20,914 --> 01:01:22,749
[Reed] It's 5:00 in the morning…

927
01:01:22,816 --> 01:01:25,218
and we're making compost.

928
01:01:27,320 --> 01:01:30,423
This is the most important kind
of garbage that there is

929
01:01:30,557 --> 01:01:34,761
because this is where the nutrients are,
and this is where the carbon is.

930
01:01:36,262 --> 01:01:37,497
The compost arrives,

931
01:01:37,597 --> 01:01:40,567
the food scraps from the restaurants
and people's homes,

932
01:01:41,668 --> 01:01:43,336
and we put them in this sorting system.

933
01:01:46,706 --> 01:01:48,408
Sixty days ago,

934
01:01:48,508 --> 01:01:50,944
this was egg shells, and chicken bones,

935
01:01:51,770 --> 01:01:53,346
and vegetable peelings.

936
01:01:53,413 --> 01:01:57,417
And, now,
it's a beautiful finished compost.

937
01:01:57,450 --> 01:02:00,220
And I'm digging in,
and it's quite warm here.

938
01:02:00,286 --> 01:02:02,856
It's still composting very actively.

939
01:02:04,570 --> 01:02:07,930
We collect our food scraps.
We put them in the green bin.

940
01:02:07,193 --> 01:02:09,629
It goes off
to Recology's compost facility.

941
01:02:09,696 --> 01:02:12,650
We turn it into compost,
and it gets on a farm.

942
01:02:13,990 --> 01:02:15,268
That's a simple solution.

943
01:02:17,103 --> 01:02:19,906
[Newsom] San Francisco became
the most sustainable big city

944
01:02:19,939 --> 01:02:23,143
in the United States of America
in just a few short years,

945
01:02:23,209 --> 01:02:24,778
and we grew our economy.

946
01:02:26,546 --> 01:02:29,215
And if San Francisco can prove an ideal,

947
01:02:30,950 --> 01:02:34,287
then that success can be replicated
in other cities, in other states,

948
01:02:34,387 --> 01:02:35,955
and other nations
around the rest of the world.

949
01:02:43,630 --> 01:02:47,133
Compost is the natural decomposition
of organic matter in nature.

950
01:02:48,501 --> 01:02:50,170
In a forest floor,
it's when the leaves drop,

951
01:02:50,236 --> 01:02:51,971
the fungi and bacteria take it over

952
01:02:52,720 --> 01:02:53,907
and literally build the soil
at the root zone.

953
01:02:55,575 --> 01:02:57,177
Compost is all about community,

954
01:02:57,310 --> 01:03:00,146
from the community of microbes
that are breaking down the pile,

955
01:03:00,180 --> 01:03:02,315
to the community of individuals
in Los Angeles

956
01:03:02,415 --> 01:03:06,586
that are physically turning and sifting
and contributing to that pile.

957
01:03:10,690 --> 01:03:13,927
I collect food scraps
from restaurants, manure from zoos.

958
01:03:14,270 --> 01:03:15,762
Manure. Do you know why?

959
01:03:15,862 --> 01:03:20,533
To keep this stuff out of landfills
and use it to make good, rich dirt.

960
01:03:20,667 --> 01:03:21,501
That's why.

961
01:03:23,200 --> 01:03:25,872
How do we take waste
and repurpose and reuse it?

962
01:03:25,939 --> 01:03:27,707
Because it's really not waste.

963
01:03:29,142 --> 01:03:31,111
My name is Pashon. It's Pashon Murray.

964
01:03:31,845 --> 01:03:35,982
So that was my destiny,
to be passionate about the environment.

965
01:03:38,118 --> 01:03:40,553
[upbeat island music playing]

966
01:03:40,653 --> 01:03:44,357
[woman 6] When we went to Haiti
to run this compost sanitation pilot…

967
01:03:45,358 --> 01:03:47,394
everybody kind of thought I was crazy.

968
01:03:47,494 --> 01:03:49,462
And maybe I am. [laughs]

969
01:03:49,529 --> 01:03:51,297
-I'm Steven. Yeah.
-And you're the…?

970
01:03:51,398 --> 01:03:53,233
-The [bleep] man.
-And I'm the [bleep] woman.

971
01:03:53,299 --> 01:03:56,970
-Yeah. We are the [bleep] men around, man.
-Yeah.

972
01:03:57,570 --> 01:03:59,205
Well Haiti happened, obviously,

973
01:03:59,305 --> 01:04:01,474
this earthquake
that was just so devastating.

974
01:04:02,909 --> 01:04:04,878
We all felt like
we wanted to do something.

975
01:04:04,978 --> 01:04:06,813
And Patricia, she's a problem solver.

976
01:04:07,814 --> 01:04:11,818
As soon as she got there, she was like,
"Okay, they have a sanitation problem."

977
01:04:11,918 --> 01:04:14,554
The water under the soil
was getting contaminated.

978
01:04:16,489 --> 01:04:19,926
[Patricia] 2.5 billion people
don't have sanitation around the world,

979
01:04:20,260 --> 01:04:22,829
and that means people can get diseases.

980
01:04:24,731 --> 01:04:29,536
So we train people around the world
to have composting toilets

981
01:04:29,602 --> 01:04:32,105
so they can learn how to collect
and treat their own waste

982
01:04:32,172 --> 01:04:33,440
for their community.

983
01:04:33,540 --> 01:04:37,944
[David] The most noticeable change
that we saw was the smell.

984
01:04:38,110 --> 01:04:41,381
The experience of living around
the latrines was night and day.

985
01:04:41,448 --> 01:04:43,183
We're in front of this compost pile.

986
01:04:43,249 --> 01:04:46,853
-Do you guys smell anything bad here?
-[children] No.

987
01:04:48,540 --> 01:04:52,125
[Patricia] Part of the strength of this
system is that it's very easy to learn.

988
01:04:52,225 --> 01:04:55,895
You don't have to order some part
or component.

989
01:04:56,696 --> 01:04:59,650
People can learn
how to do this everywhere.

990
01:04:59,990 --> 01:05:03,470
So here is the spare container.
Here is the sawdust available.

991
01:05:03,536 --> 01:05:06,439
[Patricia]
What I love about thermophilic composting

992
01:05:06,539 --> 01:05:09,609
is that it helps address
multiple climate change issues.

993
01:05:09,709 --> 01:05:12,812
It helps us protect water resources.

994
01:05:12,946 --> 01:05:14,881
Treating it
and getting rid of all the pathogens,

995
01:05:14,981 --> 01:05:16,883
and ending up with compost.

996
01:05:16,983 --> 01:05:20,820
And when it's finished,
it will be like beautiful dirt.

997
01:05:20,887 --> 01:05:24,991
You can then amend the soil
and have more crop growth.

998
01:05:25,992 --> 01:05:28,661
[David] The only problem with it
is that people are hung up on the fact

999
01:05:28,728 --> 01:05:30,296
that it's human feces.

1000
01:05:30,330 --> 01:05:32,966
We just, in general, as humans,
have a poo phobia.

1001
01:05:35,100 --> 01:05:38,505
But what most people don't know
is that all across America,

1002
01:05:38,638 --> 01:05:42,575
if you buy some potting mix,
it probably has biosolids in it,

1003
01:05:42,642 --> 01:05:44,911
and that comes from human sewage.

1004
01:05:46,179 --> 01:05:48,815
We eat food. We poop it out.

1005
01:05:48,915 --> 01:05:52,986
We can then treat it and create soil

1006
01:05:53,190 --> 01:05:56,220
that has good content for the plants,

1007
01:05:56,156 --> 01:05:58,658
and then the circle
just goes around and around.

1008
01:06:00,160 --> 01:06:02,162
The poop has to stay in the loop.

1009
01:06:03,530 --> 01:06:04,864
This is a very nice toilet,

1010
01:06:05,999 --> 01:06:08,201
and I would love to go
to the bathroom in your toilet.

1011
01:06:08,301 --> 01:06:09,602
Excuse me, please.

1012
01:06:09,703 --> 01:06:11,204
[all laughing]

1013
01:06:12,305 --> 01:06:18,440
[Harrelson] Compost is just one of a suite
of soil-based carbon capture solutions.

1014
01:06:19,446 --> 01:06:23,383
The more we choose regenerative foods,
the more that farmers will grow them.

1015
01:06:24,451 --> 01:06:27,854
We're at a critical moment
in human history.

1016
01:06:29,220 --> 01:06:34,794
There could be a way
to eat food that heals the planet.

1017
01:06:38,231 --> 01:06:42,736
The way we're articulating it
is the regenerative diet.

1018
01:06:45,338 --> 01:06:48,410
[man 9]
I've personally been vegan for 20 years.

1019
01:06:48,141 --> 01:06:51,378
I've just kind of proven in my own world,
like, hey, you can rock life in a…

1020
01:06:51,411 --> 01:06:53,646
very healthy, strong,
and powerful fashion

1021
01:06:53,747 --> 01:06:55,315
on a plant-based diet.

1022
01:06:58,218 --> 01:07:02,756
If you're eating meat, if you can eat it
from a lot more correct high-level farms.

1023
01:07:04,391 --> 01:07:05,492
[Engelhart] If we do eat meat,

1024
01:07:06,393 --> 01:07:10,630
we need to eat meat
that comes from pasture-raised,

1025
01:07:10,960 --> 01:07:13,990
grass-fed, humanely-killed animals.

1026
01:07:14,670 --> 01:07:16,736
[Bronner] This is the most crucial choice
all of us can make

1027
01:07:16,770 --> 01:07:18,271
for the future of the planet.

1028
01:07:18,338 --> 01:07:19,406
What are we eating?

1029
01:07:19,506 --> 01:07:22,800
What kind of farming systems
are we supporting?

1030
01:07:22,108 --> 01:07:24,344
Are we regenerating the Earth,
or are we degenerating?

1031
01:07:28,581 --> 01:07:30,850
[Brown] So what we have here
are two of our egg-mobiles.

1032
01:07:31,685 --> 01:07:36,256
Approximately three days after the cattle
move through an area and graze,

1033
01:07:36,356 --> 01:07:38,591
we'll bring the land hens in.

1034
01:07:38,625 --> 01:07:39,959
They truly are free range.

1035
01:07:40,600 --> 01:07:42,796
They could walk to California
if they so choose.

1036
01:07:43,930 --> 01:07:46,966
What we did here
is we went to the local grocer,

1037
01:07:47,670 --> 01:07:49,969
and we bought a dozen cage-free,

1038
01:07:50,737 --> 01:07:53,540
all-natural, humanely-raised eggs.

1039
01:07:53,606 --> 01:07:55,975
We'll reach in there
and crack one of those open.

1040
01:07:56,810 --> 01:08:01,715
Now, what we have here
is one from our pastured land hens.

1041
01:08:03,616 --> 01:08:05,985
Ours on the left is much darker colored.

1042
01:08:06,119 --> 01:08:07,287
Now, watch this.

1043
01:08:09,222 --> 01:08:11,291
See how that breaks open rather easily?

1044
01:08:12,580 --> 01:08:12,892
It's runny.

1045
01:08:13,827 --> 01:08:15,128
Now, look at this.

1046
01:08:15,228 --> 01:08:20,333
I can poke my finger into there
several times before we finally break it.

1047
01:08:20,467 --> 01:08:24,700
Now, look at the color of that yolk
and look at the difference.

1048
01:08:26,172 --> 01:08:30,844
Ours are out on pasture.
They eat whatever they can forage for.

1049
01:08:30,944 --> 01:08:33,613
These, although they're cage-free,

1050
01:08:33,680 --> 01:08:37,851
they are no doubt in confinement,
and they're fed mostly grain.

1051
01:08:37,917 --> 01:08:42,880
Ours are going to be much higher
in nutrient density

1052
01:08:42,188 --> 01:08:43,423
as compared to these.

1053
01:08:44,257 --> 01:08:46,259
And what you're really feeling there

1054
01:08:46,359 --> 01:08:51,164
is the nutrients and the complexity
of regenerative agriculture.

1055
01:08:52,766 --> 01:08:55,702
[Harrelson]
Eating a regenerative diet is important,

1056
01:08:55,769 --> 01:08:59,272
but so is working with the people
who grow our food.

1057
01:09:01,410 --> 01:09:04,844
[Archuleta] Today, we estimate
five percent or less of farms

1058
01:09:04,944 --> 01:09:06,713
are managed for soil health.

1059
01:09:07,881 --> 01:09:11,985
The Nature Conservancy has partnered
with the National Corn Growers Association

1060
01:09:12,180 --> 01:09:14,220
to establish the Soil Health Partnership.

1061
01:09:15,210 --> 01:09:20,960
Our goal is to grow this to 50 percent
of US farms managed for soil health

1062
01:09:21,610 --> 01:09:22,195
by 2025.

1063
01:09:23,496 --> 01:09:26,299
[Brown]
This idea of the Soil Health Academy

1064
01:09:26,399 --> 01:09:28,535
started about five years ago

1065
01:09:28,635 --> 01:09:33,373
when Ray first stepped onto my ranch
and we first met.

1066
01:09:34,374 --> 01:09:37,410
Little did we know
what would become of that plan

1067
01:09:37,477 --> 01:09:39,879
to try and move regeneration forward.

1068
01:09:40,413 --> 01:09:42,582
It's finally come to fruition.

1069
01:09:43,216 --> 01:09:44,384
-Ray Archuleta.
-Jesse.

1070
01:09:44,417 --> 01:09:45,752
Hi, Jesse. Good to see you.

1071
01:09:46,753 --> 01:09:50,223
Let me-- let me start off with myself.
My name is, uh, Ray Archuleta.

1072
01:09:50,323 --> 01:09:52,592
I have 32 years of government service.

1073
01:09:52,659 --> 01:09:56,996
Our goal was to make the soil healthy
to teach more these ecological principles.

1074
01:09:59,332 --> 01:10:03,336
We wanted to…
to mentor, to inspire people

1075
01:10:04,237 --> 01:10:05,905
that they're part of the planet,

1076
01:10:06,573 --> 01:10:09,509
and that we're gonna have
a better relationship with it.

1077
01:10:11,277 --> 01:10:13,546
[Brown] Used to be
you'd pick up a farm magazine,

1078
01:10:13,580 --> 01:10:15,915
and there wasn't a single article
about soil health.

1079
01:10:16,160 --> 01:10:17,684
Now, you cannot pick one up

1080
01:10:17,784 --> 01:10:20,520
without there bein' some article
about soil health.

1081
01:10:20,620 --> 01:10:21,955
That gives me hope.

1082
01:10:23,857 --> 01:10:26,259
We can improve soil health
much, much faster

1083
01:10:26,359 --> 01:10:28,610
than we used to think possible.

1084
01:10:28,128 --> 01:10:30,263
Sometimes, when I give presentations,

1085
01:10:30,296 --> 01:10:35,350
I get this group that's just, no way.
It won't happen here. Can't happen here.

1086
01:10:35,101 --> 01:10:36,936
So I offer them this challenge.

1087
01:10:36,970 --> 01:10:39,272
I said, "I will bet my ranch against yours

1088
01:10:39,305 --> 01:10:41,107
that I can get it to work
on your operation."

1089
01:10:41,941 --> 01:10:45,145
Because the principles of soil health,

1090
01:10:45,812 --> 01:10:48,982
the least amount
of mechanical disturbance, diversity,

1091
01:10:49,115 --> 01:10:53,319
armor on the soil, living root
at all times, animal integration…

1092
01:10:53,420 --> 01:10:55,555
Those principles are universal.

1093
01:10:55,622 --> 01:10:58,825
There is zero doubt,
and I mean zero doubt in my mind

1094
01:10:58,892 --> 01:11:01,828
I can get these practices to work
anywhere in the world.

1095
01:11:07,667 --> 01:11:10,904
If you look over here,
we have my neighbor's land

1096
01:11:10,970 --> 01:11:13,239
that has been chemical fallowed.

1097
01:11:13,340 --> 01:11:16,743
It has had nothing growing on it
for over a year

1098
01:11:16,810 --> 01:11:20,146
except for the few
Roundup-resistant weeds that are on here.

1099
01:11:20,947 --> 01:11:22,649
It's an ecological desert.

1100
01:11:22,749 --> 01:11:24,684
Then you look over at our paddocks,

1101
01:11:25,352 --> 01:11:28,154
you have a diversity
of different plant species.

1102
01:11:28,254 --> 01:11:29,189
You have insects.

1103
01:11:29,255 --> 01:11:32,258
You have wildlife,
plus the livestock grazing on it.

1104
01:11:32,826 --> 01:11:37,430
We're capturing sunlight from early
in the spring till late in the fall,

1105
01:11:37,497 --> 01:11:40,500
converting that sunlight
into liquid carbon

1106
01:11:40,533 --> 01:11:42,435
to drive and fuel the system.

1107
01:11:43,370 --> 01:11:46,673
There you have soil.
Over on this side, you have dirt.

1108
01:11:51,440 --> 01:11:52,879
Where do you want your food to come from?

1109
01:11:52,979 --> 01:11:56,182
Which model do you want
your food to be produced from?

1110
01:11:57,384 --> 01:11:59,185
The answer is pretty simple to me.

1111
01:12:07,293 --> 01:12:08,795
[Harrelson] All over our planet,

1112
01:12:08,862 --> 01:12:13,500
people are using the practices
of regeneration to heal the land

1113
01:12:13,566 --> 01:12:15,680
and balance the climate.

1114
01:12:16,136 --> 01:12:18,738
Some of these projects are big.

1115
01:12:20,173 --> 01:12:24,440
We know that about 25 percent
of the world's landmass

1116
01:12:24,144 --> 01:12:27,470
has been degraded
by human beings over historical time.

1117
01:12:27,147 --> 01:12:29,149
[intense music playing]

1118
01:12:30,216 --> 01:12:33,653
When we look
at the cradles of civilization,

1119
01:12:34,254 --> 01:12:36,423
Greece and Rome,

1120
01:12:36,489 --> 01:12:39,826
we find that many of these places
have turned into deserts.

1121
01:12:41,761 --> 01:12:46,266
The sand is blowing across the ruins
of once-great civilizations.

1122
01:12:47,834 --> 01:12:52,105
Loess Plateau,
the cradle of Chinese civilization.

1123
01:12:52,172 --> 01:12:56,176
That was the place
where settled agriculture first began.

1124
01:12:57,410 --> 01:13:00,914
When I was asked to film
the baseline study in the Loess Plateau,

1125
01:13:01,140 --> 01:13:04,584
I found myself alone
standing on a mountain top,

1126
01:13:04,617 --> 01:13:08,254
and I could look in 360 degrees,
and there was no vegetation.

1127
01:13:08,355 --> 01:13:09,422
[bird cawing]

1128
01:13:12,258 --> 01:13:16,196
This was fundamentally,
ecologically destroyed.

1129
01:13:16,262 --> 01:13:19,632
It was called
"the most eroded place on Earth,"

1130
01:13:20,533 --> 01:13:22,469
filled with miserably poor people.

1131
01:13:23,870 --> 01:13:29,442
So I felt that I had to spend
the rest of my life dealing with this.

1132
01:13:29,542 --> 01:13:30,710
[cheerful music playing]

1133
01:13:33,646 --> 01:13:38,218
It was hard to imagine,
at that time, that you could restore that.

1134
01:13:40,530 --> 01:13:45,892
So from about 1994 till 2009, 14 years,

1135
01:13:45,992 --> 01:13:49,620
an area of 35,000 square kilometers,

1136
01:13:49,129 --> 01:13:51,264
approximately the size of Belgium,

1137
01:13:51,831 --> 01:13:54,100
they had the top Chinese scientists,

1138
01:13:54,167 --> 01:13:57,303
they had international scientists
from the World Bank supporting them…

1139
01:13:57,404 --> 01:14:00,306
They created mapping systems
with satellites

1140
01:14:00,340 --> 01:14:05,478
so that every watershed
had a unique address.

1141
01:14:05,578 --> 01:14:07,414
The results were…

1142
01:14:09,182 --> 01:14:10,150
stunning.

1143
01:14:15,455 --> 01:14:17,691
[majestic orchestral music playing]

1144
01:14:34,507 --> 01:14:37,544
Hundreds of millions of people
were lifted out of poverty.

1145
01:14:38,345 --> 01:14:41,181
We met people who were illiterate,

1146
01:14:41,214 --> 01:14:45,852
and their children now go
to the top universities in the country.

1147
01:14:51,240 --> 01:14:53,293
["I Won't Give Up" by Jason Mraz playing]

1148
01:14:53,393 --> 01:14:55,862
[Liu] Human beings emerged in paradise.

1149
01:14:55,895 --> 01:14:59,232
If we restore
all the degraded land on the Earth,

1150
01:14:59,299 --> 01:15:01,234
we can return to paradise.

1151
01:15:02,702 --> 01:15:06,139
If we start now
to build a restoration economy,

1152
01:15:06,239 --> 01:15:07,974
a regeneration economy,

1153
01:15:08,541 --> 01:15:10,310
this is the way forward.

1154
01:15:11,478 --> 01:15:15,181
To see a stream return and flow

1155
01:15:15,248 --> 01:15:17,751
to bring back fertile soils,

1156
01:15:17,817 --> 01:15:21,988
to see biodiversity return to a place
that was completely devastated,

1157
01:15:22,489 --> 01:15:26,659
this is where everyone can find
tremendous satisfaction.

1158
01:15:28,661 --> 01:15:33,767
[Mraz] ♪ When I look into your eyes ♪

1159
01:15:33,867 --> 01:15:39,720
♪ It's like watchin' the night sky ♪

1160
01:15:39,105 --> 01:15:44,411
♪ Or a beautiful sunrise ♪

1161
01:15:44,511 --> 01:15:48,782
♪ For there's so much they hold ♪

1162
01:15:53,186 --> 01:15:57,570
[Liu] So let's restore
a little bit of paradise every day.

1163
01:15:58,224 --> 01:15:59,693
It's not that difficult.

1164
01:16:00,627 --> 01:16:04,531
If we stop distracting ourselves
with shiny objects,

1165
01:16:04,631 --> 01:16:07,534
and we start to think
about what's really important to us,

1166
01:16:07,634 --> 01:16:12,105
to see biodiversity returned
to a place it was completely devastated…

1167
01:16:14,941 --> 01:16:18,945
This is where everyone
can find tremendous satisfaction

1168
01:16:19,612 --> 01:16:21,781
and the meaning of our lives.

1169
01:16:25,218 --> 01:16:27,620
[Doniga] We're all in this together.
[chuckles]

1170
01:16:27,721 --> 01:16:31,891
Every action that we take
affects every other action

1171
01:16:31,991 --> 01:16:34,600
like a ripple in the pond.

1172
01:16:35,962 --> 01:16:38,465
So what decision are you gonna make

1173
01:16:38,565 --> 01:16:42,502
that will make a positive impact
on this beautiful planet

1174
01:16:42,635 --> 01:16:46,906
so that our great grandchildren,
seven generations in the future,

1175
01:16:46,973 --> 01:16:50,677
can actually go up
and hug an old growth redwood tree,

1176
01:16:51,745 --> 01:16:54,347
and swim in clean waters,

1177
01:16:55,181 --> 01:16:59,252
and be able to open their mouths
and drink while they're swimming?

1178
01:17:03,456 --> 01:17:06,493
And what is it that we can do today

1179
01:17:06,593 --> 01:17:10,997
so that our children
can flourish in the abundance

1180
01:17:11,970 --> 01:17:13,833
that we've created by our decisions?

1181
01:17:19,720 --> 01:17:22,409
[Archuleta] I will drive 100 miles,
1,000 miles if we have to,

1182
01:17:23,677 --> 01:17:25,578
to save one farm.

1183
01:17:25,712 --> 01:17:27,747
To open one heart and one mind.

1184
01:17:29,983 --> 01:17:31,885
It's that one mind that you change.

1185
01:17:31,985 --> 01:17:35,655
You don't know if it'll affect
another mind, another heart.

1186
01:17:36,356 --> 01:17:37,891
It's what happened to us.

1187
01:17:37,924 --> 01:17:40,860
It changed our hearts,
and it changed our lives.

1188
01:17:43,290 --> 01:17:46,320
[Rodale] No, it's not about religion.
It's not about politics.

1189
01:17:46,660 --> 01:17:47,901
It's about love.

1190
01:17:48,435 --> 01:17:50,403
And if you love something
or you love somebody,

1191
01:17:50,503 --> 01:17:51,571
you want to understand them,

1192
01:17:51,705 --> 01:17:53,940
and you want to, like,
take care of them and protect them

1193
01:17:55,750 --> 01:17:56,242
and keep them safe.

1194
01:17:57,770 --> 01:17:58,878
And that's what we're all here to do.

1195
01:18:00,580 --> 01:18:04,951
Even like the little mycorrhiza fungi,
and the worms, and the bacteria.

1196
01:18:06,860 --> 01:18:08,588
And if we take care of them,
they'll take care of us.

1197
01:18:11,858 --> 01:18:15,128
[Harrelson] From the smallest microbes
to the largest creatures,

1198
01:18:16,620 --> 01:18:18,932
our blue planet pulses with life.

1199
01:18:21,301 --> 01:18:25,405
For millions of years,
it has self-healed and self-balanced.

1200
01:18:27,907 --> 01:18:31,911
But, today,
our species faces its biggest test.

1201
01:18:34,214 --> 01:18:35,582
Our mission is simple.

1202
01:18:36,282 --> 01:18:41,221
We must harness
the regenerative power of Earth, itself.

1203
01:18:45,759 --> 01:18:46,893
I'll make you a deal.

1204
01:18:47,994 --> 01:18:48,995
I won't give up,

1205
01:18:50,830 --> 01:18:52,132
and neither should you.

1206
01:18:52,665 --> 01:18:57,904
[Mraz]
♪ 'Cause even the stars, they burn ♪

1207
01:18:57,971 --> 01:19:03,343
♪ Some even fall to the earth ♪

1208
01:19:03,476 --> 01:19:08,615
♪ We got a lot to learn ♪

1209
01:19:08,682 --> 01:19:11,184
♪ God knows we're worth it ♪

1210
01:19:13,186 --> 01:19:17,457
♪ No, I won't give up ♪

1211
01:19:20,930 --> 01:19:23,363
♪ I don't wanna be
Someone who walks away so easily ♪

1212
01:19:23,463 --> 01:19:27,701
♪ I'm here to stay
and make the difference that I can make ♪

1213
01:19:30,704 --> 01:19:33,707
♪ Our differences, they do a lot
To teach us how to use ♪

1214
01:19:33,807 --> 01:19:38,511
♪ The tools and gifts we got
Yeah, we got a lot at stake ♪

1215
01:19:40,814 --> 01:19:43,683
♪ And in the end, you're still my friend
At least we did intend ♪

1216
01:19:43,783 --> 01:19:46,720
♪ For us to work, we didn't break
We didn't burn ♪

1217
01:19:46,820 --> 01:19:51,858
♪ We had to learn how to bend
Without the world caving in ♪

1218
01:19:51,991 --> 01:19:56,620
♪ I had to learn what I got
And what I'm not ♪

1219
01:19:56,196 --> 01:20:00,834
♪ And who I am ♪

1220
01:20:00,900 --> 01:20:05,905
♪ I won't give up on us ♪

1221
01:20:06,390 --> 01:20:11,440
♪ Even if the skies get rough ♪

1222
01:20:11,144 --> 01:20:16,249
♪ I'm giving you all my love ♪

1223
01:20:16,383 --> 01:20:18,885
♪ I'm still looking up ♪

1224
01:20:18,985 --> 01:20:21,521
♪ I'm still looking up ♪

1225
01:20:21,588 --> 01:20:26,893
-♪ Well, I won't give up ♪
-♪ No, I won't give in ♪

1226
01:20:27,270 --> 01:20:32,365
-♪ God knows, I'm tough enough ♪
-♪ I am tough, I am loved ♪

1227
01:20:32,432 --> 01:20:37,570
-♪ We got a lot to learn ♪
-♪ We're alive, we are loved ♪

1228
01:20:37,604 --> 01:20:42,542
-♪ God knows, we're worth it ♪
-♪ And we're worth it ♪

1229
01:20:42,575 --> 01:20:47,614
♪ I won't give up on us ♪

1230
01:20:47,747 --> 01:20:52,786
♪ Even if the skies get rough ♪

1231
01:20:52,919 --> 01:20:58,580
♪ I'm givin' you all my love ♪

1232
01:20:58,910 --> 01:21:01,428
♪ I'm still lookin' up ♪

1233
01:21:03,263 --> 01:21:04,898
What is carbon dioxide?

1234
01:21:04,931 --> 01:21:08,301
It's, um… Comes from… Um…

1235
01:21:08,401 --> 01:21:10,804
That's a trick question for me.
You caught me off guard on that.

1236
01:21:10,904 --> 01:21:15,308
I guess that would be carbon
and two atoms-- two molecules of dio--

1237
01:21:15,408 --> 01:21:17,770
of whatever.

1238
01:21:17,143 --> 01:21:18,244
[mumbling]

1239
01:21:18,311 --> 01:21:19,913
Something bad?

1240
01:21:19,946 --> 01:21:23,830
It's poison that you're breathing.
And it will destroy you.

1241
01:21:24,984 --> 01:21:27,870
What are things
that you're doing in your life

1242
01:21:27,153 --> 01:21:30,123
to make an impact around climate change?

1243
01:21:30,223 --> 01:21:31,224
-Um…
-Um…

1244
01:21:31,291 --> 01:21:32,225
-Um…
-Uh…

1245
01:21:32,292 --> 01:21:33,760
-Uh…
-Hmm…

1246
01:21:33,827 --> 01:21:36,620
I mean, I like to, you know,
do my part when I can,

1247
01:21:36,129 --> 01:21:37,130
like, with my metal straw.

1248
01:21:37,163 --> 01:21:39,265
-Going to the paper straws.
-No plastic straws.

1249
01:21:39,332 --> 01:21:40,834
Paper straws versus plastic.

1250
01:21:40,934 --> 01:21:42,168
Recycled straws.

1251
01:21:42,302 --> 01:21:44,471
Every time I come here, I feel energized.

1252
01:21:45,500 --> 01:21:47,941
[Harrelson] If recycling and paper straws
are our only hope,

1253
01:21:48,675 --> 01:21:50,477
then we are in really big trouble.

1254
01:21:52,112 --> 01:21:56,182
We can absolutely reverse climate change

1255
01:21:56,316 --> 01:21:57,851
by making things better,

1256
01:21:57,984 --> 01:22:00,200
not just fixing what was bad.

1257
01:22:00,153 --> 01:22:01,821
Could you imagine that?
So, we're not just--

1258
01:22:01,855 --> 01:22:05,125
we're not-- no longer degenerating,
we are regenerating.

1259
01:22:05,992 --> 01:22:08,795
[man 10]
That sound awesome. I want regeneration.

1260
01:22:08,862 --> 01:22:12,999
[Mraz] ♪ Father to my mother
Who died when I was 12 ♪

1261
01:22:13,990 --> 01:22:15,535
♪ Who didn't leave a fortune ♪

1262
01:22:15,668 --> 01:22:18,304
♪ But a different kind of wealth ♪

1263
01:22:18,338 --> 01:22:20,707
♪ A tree for me to climb in ♪

1264
01:22:20,807 --> 01:22:23,376
♪ With fruit under its leaves ♪

1265
01:22:23,510 --> 01:22:28,181
♪ Which season after season
Became quite a legacy ♪

1266
01:22:28,948 --> 01:22:33,720
♪ More than just a farmer
He was a brilliant engineer ♪

1267
01:22:33,820 --> 01:22:38,992
♪ Whose footsteps took him farther
As they fertilized the fields ♪

1268
01:22:39,250 --> 01:22:44,230
♪ In oil and ancient stock
He placed new varieties ♪

1269
01:22:44,330 --> 01:22:46,700
♪ A believer in the future ♪

1270
01:22:46,733 --> 01:22:49,836
♪ He was a man who planted trees ♪

1271
01:22:49,903 --> 01:22:56,743
♪ Go lay your roots down, son ♪

1272
01:22:56,876 --> 01:23:02,150
♪ Let your love shine on every word ♪

1273
01:23:02,820 --> 01:23:07,354
♪ Lay your roots down here ♪

1274
01:23:07,420 --> 01:23:10,924
♪ There's a thousand ways to feel ♪

1275
01:23:12,926 --> 01:23:16,262
♪ He taught me how to kiss the ground ♪

1276
01:23:17,864 --> 01:23:21,601
♪ And be grateful with my words aloud ♪

1277
01:23:23,703 --> 01:23:27,107
♪ Even the air is different now ♪

1278
01:23:27,207 --> 01:23:33,413
♪ And I'm gonna make him proud ♪

1279
01:23:33,546 --> 01:23:36,490
♪ Singin' go ♪

1280
01:23:36,116 --> 01:23:41,221
♪ Lay your roots down, son ♪

1281
01:23:41,287 --> 01:23:46,393
♪ Let your love shine on every word ♪

1282
01:23:46,426 --> 01:23:51,765
♪ Lay your roots down here ♪

1283
01:23:51,865 --> 01:23:55,235
♪ There's a thousand ways to near ♪

1284
01:23:55,301 --> 01:23:59,305
♪ Kiss the ground, kiss the ground
Kiss the ground ♪

1285
01:24:00,540 --> 01:24:04,411
♪ Kiss the ground, kiss the ground
Kiss the ground ♪

1286
01:24:05,779 --> 01:24:09,749
♪ Kiss the ground, kiss the ground
Kiss the ground ♪

1287
01:24:10,950 --> 01:24:14,621
♪ Kiss the ground, kiss the ground
Kiss the ground ♪

